The CNEW Skew © 2008, Central New England Woodturners

Monthly Newsletter of the Central New England Woodturners

Volume 21 Number 1 January 2008

Next Meeting Details Topic: Tentatively, Tool Making or Oval Boxes Speaker: ? Date: January 3, 2008

Presidents Message. Charlie Croteau A fine time was had by one and all at the clubs Annual Christmas meeting. As usual there was far more food than we could eat. I did my part working on the shrimp, kielbasa, macaroni, bean dip and the sweat sausages. Yum, yum, yum… I didn’t do much damage to all the delightful desserts. Thank you to everyone who brought something and everyone who Outgoing President Al Faul (left) and Incoming President Charlie Croteau discuss who got the better deal. helped out like Al’s wife. I guess if we all do a little, we’ll all have plenty. That about sums up the spirit of Minutes of CNEW meeting 12/06/2007Tim Elliott our great club. A hearty thank you to our out going president Al. As As usual, Al asked any guests/visitors to identify themselves. Nobody raised his or her hand. There the new guy on the block I hope to follow in Al’s footsteps and keep the business meeting short so we seemed to be many member spouses in attendance. can have more time for Show and Tell as well as our The main point of business was to conduct elections. demonstrators. Nobody stepped forward to be External VP. We Hopefully this year I will bring a different element to would like to fill this position at the next meeting our club. Field trips! Yes, I figure it might be fun to before the Woodworks show in January. Please visit some of the shops I sneak into now and again. consider volunteering. Here is what I have planed as possible trips so far. The Hardwick Kilns, Shawn Roberts Woodworking Many thanks to our outgoing 2007 officers, some of Mill, a visit to a CNC Lathe, an old mill towards whom have served many years. Boston that makes oval frames on a lathe, maybe Lisa Boutotte showed a box of blocks made by a local even Norton’s if security doesn’t object. (general) woodworking club for donation to local kids. Time for me to make some shavings so Santa can complete his list. Table of Contents Looking forward to seeing everyone in the new year. Presidents Message 1 Next Meeting Details 1 Editorial. Rick Angus Editorial 1 For most of us, the newsletter is the first line of club Club Officers Listing 2 activity communications (but don’t forget our website). My thanks to Graeme for his policy improvements and Minutes of previous meeting 1 hard work putting-out the newsletter last year. I invite Internal VP Plans 2 everyone to contribute an article or a few comments Show & Yell 3 to the newsletter; if everyone contribute one thing this year, the NL will be packed with great information.. Turned Gift Grab Gab Pictures 3-5

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2008 Club Officers Contact Information Internal VP plans for 2008 Dave Eaton President Charlie [email protected] Croteau VP, Internal Dave Eaton [email protected]  Continue to develop and maintain the video VP, External Please [email protected] library while increasing its user friendliness. Let’s volunteer s get our Secretary Tim Elliott [email protected] get our members interested in it. Let’ Treasurer Norma [email protected] loaned items back or the extra dough! Hogan  “Freshen up” the book library. Some titles are not Newsletter Rick Angus [email protected] Video Librarian Al Faul [email protected] highly useful. Perhaps we’ll auction them off. Book Ray Boutotte [email protected]  Review the store with Ray and determine the Librarian members needs. Maybe add additional items like Webmaster Dave Eaton [email protected] Photography Mike Stone [email protected] Anchor Seal, drill sanding mandrels, pen kits, etc. Wood Swap Gene Spadi  Have at least one “brand name” turner in for a Freedom Pens Gene Spadi demo night. Project Charlie Goodwill Croteau  Get perhaps 3 local area well known turners in for meeting night demo’s  Promote the Open Turning sessions before meetings, perhaps using a theme or club challenge approach They appeared to be unfinished wood scraps with the  Promote Project Goodwill with Charlie, perhaps edges sanded over for safety. Lisa said the kids were we’ll have a member recognition plaque or thrilled with these simple toys and asked if CNEW challenge or webpage dedicated to the members members would be willing to make similar sets. Several members volunteered. If you would like to and their donations. Same for Gene Spadi and contribute, please bring any blocks you make to a the Freedom Pen Project. CNEW meeting to be pooled and divided into sets.  Work on getting our TV and Video system in Lisa will make cloth bags to hold each set. good working order so it is more useful for CNEW will again have a booth at the Woodworks demo’s show at "the big E" grounds near Springfield. The  Manage a good Wood Swap program with Gene dates for this event are January 11-13 2008. Spadi’s assistance. Aim is at having an ample Al Czellecz has a very large lathe available. It has a supply of healthy, appropriate wood each month. ten foot bed length, 3 horsepower motor, and 22" capacity over the bed. It weighs in the vicinity of 2500  Help new turners get hooked up successfully with pounds. He is offering this free to anyone who can a mentor. Promote the Mentor program to be arrange to pick it up. more active. This may also take form of more CNEW member John Styspek is in the hospital. informal “Shop Meetings”. Such as where one Many of us signed a card for him. member offers their shop on a date and time and Dues for 2008 are payable any time. Cost is $20 for one to four turners visit their place to turn and newsletter via e-mail, $25 if you want a paper talk. Sharing our skills helps us learn. newsletter via US mail.  Get the names and faces page on the website up Our 2007 president Al Faul passed the gavel to 2008 to date—Hopefully a step to increase inter- president Charlie Croteau. Charlie had a surprise member communication and fellowship. wood-identification challenge. He passed out a Perhaps run a fund raiser for the club to beef up brown wood sample with an unusual smell that  nobody was able to ID. In the end, he had to tell us: it the coffers. Maybe in the form of donated items was "roasted maple", a new manufactured product sold to the public or internal raffle? Extra cash is intended to compete with walnut. Very tricky, Charlie. useful for demo’s and equipment (lathe, accys, Tonight's program: Annual pot-luck and gift swap. videos, cameras, etc.)  Recruit new members and motivate other members to do the same.

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Show & Tell Turned Gift Grab Bag Pictures:

Very sparse this month; the gift swap seems to have In keeping with club tradition, club members blindly mostly displaced it. exchanged small turned items, grab-bag style. Participating members prepared an exquisite turning as a gift, wrapped it in a brown bag affixed with a string and placed it in a large ornate vessel. Numbers were drawn a random and members then grabbed a string and reeled-in their gift. Some pictures of the festivities follow:

Large ash bowl by Dominic Leroux

Al Faul Displaying Ornament made by Jim Metcalf

Lighthouse made by Al Faul

Walnut/Maple Bowl made by Steve Resnek; drawn by Tim Elliott

Ray Boutotte Cherry bowl with pyrography by Lisa

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Dave Eaton—excited even before opening his gift… Mike Peters early in the opening process

Will Hunt’s ornament was chosen by Gene Spadi Joe Harby ready to use his new round skew made by Dave Eaton

... A bowl made by Stan Felton Ray Boutotte (wearing a wooden hat that he made with Johannes Michelsen) holding oil lamp made by

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Tim Elliott received a fine Walnut and Maple bowl by Steve Resnek

Micky Goodman seemingly amazed by a vase by Tim Elliott

Will Hunt holding his grab; a walnut bowl made by Rick Angus

A Mike Peters Bowl—I’d know that rim from a mile away Charlie Croteau admiring the club kaleidoscope

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The CNEW Skew

Central New England Woodturners c/o Worchester Center for Crafts 25 Sagamore Rd. Worchester MA 01605 Phone: 508 753 8183 Fax: 508 797 5626 e-Mail: [email protected]

Central New England Woodturners A Chapter of the American Association of Woodturners

Find us on the web @ www.cnew.org

Membership Application To join or renew membership, please complete this form and a check made payable to CNEW and bring it to a CNEW meeting or mail it to:

Treasurer, Central New England Woodturners c/o Worchester Center for Crafts 25 Sagamore Rd. Worchester MA 01650

Annual dues: $20 including e-mail delivery of newsletter; $25 for postal delivery of newsletter.

Name: ______Please check one category below Street: ______New Member City: ______Returning Member State: ______& Zip: ______e-Mail: ______Please let us know of your interests: How long have you been turning? ______What programs would you like to see at meetings? ______Would you like to demonstrate at a meeting? Yes/No If so, what topics do you offer? ______

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Volume 20 Issue 11 November 2007 Guest Editorial Presidentʼs Message Charlie Croteau I thought that we had a great meeting this month. Remember elections are next meeting and we need a WOW! The demonstration by George Guadiani, on editor which is the life line of the club. We have been Off Axis Turned Staves (OATS) was a great success. fortunate to have Graeme to do the magazine for the All of you who participated gave Project Goodwill a past three years. We have a candidate for President who tremendous shot in the arm. I can’t thank you enough. I think is very capable. Remember to bring a dish for The pieces that you gave were extremely generous. To the pot luck supper, the wife and I will bring plates, be succinct, I was “blown away” by your kindness. silverware, cups, napkins etc. Also bring a piece that All of the pieces were so tasteful. To prove this point you have made, in a bag with a 3ft string on it for the let me just say the piece weren’t even unpacked and I gift swap. At the November meeting we had George had already sold two Guadiane who did a demo “off axis triangle Stave pieces for $360. Segmented Turning”, which was very interesting but On Sat. morning a remember to use plenty of glue. George also donated 2 family friend Diane, cherry burls to our auction and did not charge us for the that cleans for my demonstration as everybody donated pieces to Charlie’s mom wanted to see Goodwill Project. Charlie was labbergasted by the the pieces, so I had number of items donated. I also would like to thank her get them out of the A.R.T. club and The Cape Cod Wood Turners club my SUV. As she was who joined in with the project. As I write this the WCC unpacking them on Fair will have gone by and I hope we will have helped my bed my oldest to make it a success. I would like to wish everybody in brother Joe walked in. the club the best for the coming Holidays and the New He saw the crabapple Year and I hope everybody gets that white lathe that vase and wanted to they wanted. Have fun and keep turning. know what was the deal. I told him about Contents Project Goodwill and how you good folks Presidentʼs Message 1 had donated these items. He wanted the Editorial 1 crabapple piece so he gave me $60.00 for it. Just then Club Oficers 2 Diane started to take out Will Hunt’s closed form. “I’ll take that one too.” Trying to think on my feet….which Minutes of Last Meeting 2 is hard for me. “Oh no, that is not a $60.00 piece, it’s a $300.00 piece.” Said I, wanting to put things into George Guadiane Demo 3 perspective. My brother shrugged and said. “Okay.” Show & Tell 6 I had inadvertently set the price at $300.00, should I

PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor Page 2 THE CNEW SKEW VOLUME 20 ISSUE 11 Club Oficers and Contact Info for 2007 President, Al Faul [email protected] VP, Internal, Reid Gilmore [email protected] VP, External, Mary Maguire [email protected] Secretary, Tim Elliott [email protected] Treasurer, Norma Hogan [email protected] Newsletter, Graeme Young [email protected] Video Librarian, Al Faul [email protected] Book Librarian, Ray Boutotte [email protected] Webmaster, Dave Eaton [email protected] Photography, Henry Fairlie [email protected]

Minutes of November Meeting this organization $48 each. Tim Elliott Dues for 2008 are payable any time. Cost is $20 for newsletter via e-mail, $25 if you want a paper Guests/visitors: Lots. Too many, too fast for me to catch newsletter via US mail. them all. The library has two new videos. Both are by Rex and Treasurer Norma Hogan reported Kip: Woodturning Projects and Turning Pens. Thanks beginning balance: $3127.96 to Mary Maguire who has been videotaping the meeting end balance: $3032.45 programs for the library. Our December meeting will include elections for 2008 Thanks to Dave Eaton who brought in a load of cherry oficers. We have a candidate for club president, but no for the wood swap (with help from several members of one has yet stepped forward to apply for Newsletter the ART chapter, too). Thanks also to George Guadiane Editor. If you are interested, please make yourself who donated 2 cherry burls for auction. known to one of the current oficers or speak up at the Next month: open-shop at 5:30 prior to the meeting December meeting. Also in December, we will have our usual holiday gift Editorial (ctd.) swap (bring a turning in a plain brown bag tied shut try and get more out of him now? I decided to let it with a length of string - take home a turning from go at that and made sure that he knew he was getting somebody else) and our usual pot-luck feasting (bring a a museum piece at a steal. (Sorry Will if I let it go for dish of some kind to pass). too little.) We will again take part in the WCC craft fair the Later, my sister Jane and her husband Ron who own weekend of Thanksgiving. Several members have and run Park Print in Worcester took eleven pieces to signed up to participate. If you are participating but their shop to sell for us. People had bought pieces last not setting up, be sure to get your items for sale to the year and were hoping to sell some again. booth on Friday. Booth costs will be split according to On Saturday, Dec. 1st my friends from Boston who got the CNEW fair policy: $10 lat entry fee with remainder me involved in Free Wheelchair Mission and I will be of costs assessed as a portion of sales. participating in an alternative gift fair in Boston. I’m We used the Centerʼs Jet lathe for the demo tonight - sure the Christmas tree ornaments, pens and other Reid Gilmore observed that we should really own an pieces will be a great success. adapter that will adapt the Jetʼs spindle to 1” compatible In closing let me say that together we are doing a with the clubʼs chucks. We voted to buy one. beautiful thing. I hope that each of you is having as much fun as I am. Together we are changing the world. Charlie Croteau gave an update on Project Goodwill Thanks so much for helping to get my brothers and (donated turnings sold to purchase wheelchairs for sisters with disabilities off the ground. distribution in the third world). Wheelchairs now cost

PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor Page 3 THE CNEW SKEW VOLUME 20 ISSUE 11 “Turning Triangles” “OATS” Segmented Bowl/Vase (“OATS” Off Axis Triangle Stave Blanks Segmenting) George Guadiane Turning triangles was an accident. While using my bandsaw, I cut the approximate 45-degree angle edges off of two square turning blanks, to save my arms and turning tools a little. In gathering up the “scraps,” I noticed that they might form an open circle, instead of meeting in the middle in the classic pie wedge orientation. The idea worked. The segments were ROUGH, but I could see that the concept could be developed. One attraction was the possibility to take a quantity of wood and make a larger usable blank than I could have otherwise. Another was the wall thickness of a blank that could result, which would allow for more diverse opportunities in shape and proportion than regular stave segments would. The aspect I found most interesting was the curved segment line that I knew would result. My irst two attempts came out much better than I expected. Because they were cut “freehand” with a fairly dull, tilted saw blade there was considerable sanding involved getting the staves to it properly. I made a design choice that wasn’t all that Materials List: attractive on the irst one and a construction ฀ 37+ off 14 x 24 inches Spalted Maple choice on the second one that lessened the ฀ 28+ off 14+ inches walnut veneer drama a bit. Tools List: ฀ Table Saw Editor’s note: George’s demonstration was in ฀ Triangle cutting sled two parts, the irst detailing how to build the ฀ 3 hose clamp sets large enough to clamp the table saw jig and the second on making an blank OATS vessel. To it the available space, I have ฀ Screwdriver/nut driver/drill to tighten hose eliminated the irst part. Everything is in the clamps ฀ 6+ ounces wood glue (I like Titebond II) handout and no doubt on the web site by now. ฀ 3 inch foam brush

PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor Page 4 THE CNEW SKEW VOLUME 20 ISSUE 11 1. Make a materials list as above. 12. Flip the veneer over and make sure that 2. Make a tools list. Make sure that the hose side has glue on every spot. clamps are of a suficient diameter to it the 13. Repeat this step till all segments have a blank you will make. glued veneer between them. 3. Collect all of your materials. 14. Put the hose clamps on and begin to tighten 4. Cut the triangles and veneer to size. (not too tight yet), starting with the middle 5. Dry it the triangle pieces, clamping them clamp. Alternate/rotate the position of the to insure that the angles are tight with no tightening nuts to distribute the stress more light between the segments. The veneer, evenly. MAKE SURE THE VENEER IS being of uniform thickness will not change PROPERLY SITUATED. the it, and is somewhat delicate, so the less 15. Alternate the tightening to insure a snug handling the better. even it. The wet surfaces will insure that o Clamping from the outside uses a can- they slide into place. tilever action, applying equal pressure 16. Allow this glue-up to dry. across all adjoining surfaces. For this particular blank assembly, there appears to be no need for a device to push the pieces out from the inside. 6. If there are gaps, you will want to sand, using a lat surface, belt or large disc sander, applying most of your pressure on the edge of each of the short sides away from the gap. 7. Lay out all of the tools and materials. 8. Stand the blank on end and remove all but the bottom hose clamp. Make sure to loosen the clamps enough to allow them to slip easily over the loosely itted, freshly glued assembly. 9. Loosen the bottom hose clamp a lot; we will need to be able to move the staves around to slip the glue-covered veneers between them. We also want to be able to 17. Make tapered plugs to it the openings keep them from wandering too far. The at the ends of the blank. I use one in the clamp ring at the bottom does this. chuck, and one on the live center. If you 10. On a smooth surface, squeeze out a layer of have a cone live center and the lare is big- glue, about the size of the veneer you will ger than the opening, use that. be saturating. Use a foam brush or squee- 18. Place the blank between those centers and gee to do this. turn off the high spots (“corners”), and 11. Lay the veneer into the glue; spread glue smooth (what will become) the top, leaving evenly (but not TOO thick) on that surface. a collar/tenon/spigot.

PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor Page 5 THE CNEW SKEW VOLUME 20 ISSUE 11 19. Mount the blank using the chuck, keeping ceive the foot blank. it between centers for now. 23. Between centers, turn the inal bottom/foot, 20. Turn the outside to the approximate in- including enough materials for a tenon/ ished dimensions and form. spigot. 24. Once the tenon is turned, chuck the foot up and it the foot to the vase. 25. When the bottom is properly itted, glue it up between centers. I also do this step, using the lathe. This insures good even pressure and a tight it. 26. Once dry, you can balance and inal turn your outside shape. I do a lot of rough con- tour sanding at this point too (down to 120 grit). 27. Use the larger access to turn the inside more easily, before applying the top (if you are going to apply one. 21. (for a hollow/vase form) Since you are go- 28. If not already on, glue the top and allow it ing to have easy access to the bottom, you to dry between centers. might want to turn out some of the mate- 29. Finish the turning to your desired dimen- rial you know will be removed from the sions and apply the inish of your choice. inside bottom anyway, because the bottom is harder to get down to once the blank is assembled. For vases and hollow forms, I always do.

ANNOUNCEMENT

From Dave Eaton: I was just informed by Ken Dubay that long time CNEW member John Styspeck is in the hospital and “battling for his life”. Please join in wishing John well and if you know him on a personal level may wish to reach out to him or his wife. I donʼt have any additional details. Johnʼs contact info is available on the CNEW website 22. Finish the open end of the blank FLAT and under the members only area. We wish you the best John! with a small recess, making it ready to re-

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Alan Gilburg, cherry Dave Eaton brought this bowl ffrom A.R.T. for Goodwill

Laminated bowl by Dominic Leroux Dave Gillette - ambrosia maple “creature” platter Show and Tell Photographs by Henry Fairlie

Maple bowl by Jerry Sambrook

OATS vase by George Stan Felton, spalted maple ornament

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Will Hunt, three experiments in one

A Ken Brannock carving

One of Joe Harbeyʼs cherry burl bowls

Bill LeClerc, crabapple

Steve Reznek, norwegian birch crotch and cherry

“Papa Joe”

PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor CENTRAL NEW ENGLAND TION O WOODTURNERS CIA F W O O SS O A D N T Central New England A U R IC N Woodturners R E E R c/o Worcester Center for Crafts M S

A 25 Sagamore Road Worcester, MA 01605

Phone: 508-753-8183 C Fax: 508-797-5626 E R N E T T Email: [email protected] R P AL HA NE C W ENGLAND

Central New England Woodturners A Chapter of the American Association of Woodturners

On the web: www.cnew.org

To join or renew your membership, print this form and either bring it to the next meeting with cash or check for $20 made payable to CNEW, or mail the form along with a check to:

Treasurer Central New England Woodturners c/o Worcester Center For Crafts 25 Sagamore Road Worcester, MA 01650

Name ______Address ______City ______State ____ Zip ______Telephone ______E-mail ______If you wish, please let us know more about you and your interests. Old member New member Turning how many years? ______Selling your work? Yes No Where? ______What programs would you like to see at our meetings? ______Would you be interested in demonstrating at one of our meetings? Yes No

Volume 20 Issue 10 October 2007 Editorial Presidentʼs Message I wasnʼt planning to attend the Albany Symposium I just got back from Totally Turning in Albany NY. this year but when Richard DiPerna came down with and I had a great time as I met some new people and lu and offered his ticket to the irst taker, well – thatʼs touched base with some old friends. There were a lot nearly as good as free wood, isnʼt it? So as well as of wood blanks as well as quite a number of tools to spending money on some not-so-free wood from Curtis purchase if you had some extra change to part with. Lumber and Bruce Hooverʼs Sanding Solution, I came They had a place to turn a pen, they also had a egg away with a few new ideas. Paul Petrie reiterated a few cup race where you turned against a clock to see who points about surface decoration, chief among them the was the fastest. I saw eight demo’s and enjoyed them fact that you have to be sitting (or standing, or lying) all and learned something at each one. I also met our comfortably. Good light and magniication are also speaker for November, George Guadiane who will essential, otherwise the repetetive motions and the not charge the club if we all bring a turned piece for strain will soon convince you there are better ways to Charlie’s Wheelchair Project. It is time to inish up all spend an evening. And when stippling, no shortcuts! If those projects that you are going to bring to the Craft you donʼt cover the entire surface, the few remaining Fair which is the weekend immediately following lat spots will stick out like a sore thumb once the Thanksgiving, also we have to take down our booth inish goes on. In any kind of piercing or stippling, it which is stored upstairs from where we meet on the is generally advisable to draw the patterns irst so you Wednesday before about 3 or 4 people are needed for avoid making all the marks in straight lines or the same approx. 1 hour. The club is looking for someone to take size – randomness is usually desirable. over the duties of the Editor for the club newsletter for Peter Exton did a very interesting 2-part rotation on his the coming year. I am having fun are you????? explorations of multi-centred spindle turning, although AL the second part was slowed down by several people who felt they could skip the irst part and then proved they should not have by asking questions that had Contents already been answered. Peter was considerably more Presidentʼs Message 1 patient than I would have been. As part of the rotation, Peter showed a series of slides starting from his work Editorial 1 with furniture, where the turning is in a subsidiary role, Club Oficers 2 through to more recent work where the is no sign of anything functional. Of one table, he commented that Next Monthʼs Program 2 the proportion of the top diameter to the height was “about” the Golden Proportion! Minutes of Last Meeting 2 Finally, I watched Andre Martel use his hook tool to Design Discussion 3 hollow out a natural-edge lampshade from a whole log (with some bits hacked off until it it on the lathe). As Club Survey/Poll 5 is common with this sort of demo, it took a while to Show & Tell 6 ctd. on p. 2

PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor Page 2 THE CNEW SKEW VOLUME 20 ISSUE 10 Club Oficers and Contact Info for 2007 President, Al Faul [email protected] VP, Internal, Reid Gilmore [email protected] VP, External, Mary Maguire [email protected] Secretary, Tim Elliott [email protected] Treasurer, Norma Hogan [email protected] Newsletter, Graeme Young [email protected] Video Librarian, Al Faul [email protected] Book Librarian, Ray Boutotte [email protected] Webmaster, Dave Eaton [email protected] Photography, Henry Fairlie [email protected]

October 13 in or near Bolton. Details are available at Minutes of October Meeting www.emgw.org. Tim Elliott Dave Eaton has coordinated with Hartville Tool Guests/visitors: none. New members: Peter Wilcox Woodworking to get CNEW discounted pricing on items Treasurer Norma Hogan reported that our bank balance ordered from their website: www.hartvilletool.com. is now $3127.96 Our December meeting will include elections for 2008 oficers. Al Faul will step down from the ofice of president. Graeme Young has also announced that he will step down as newsletter editor. November Meeting The Woodworks show will again be at the big E George Guadiane (Georgeʼs website is fairgrounds in Springield Jan 11-13. Our booth will turnedbygeorge.com) - bring a piece for Project be next to the gallery for better security of items on Goodwill display. Totally Turning will be held in Albany this month. The Woodcarverʼs show will be October 21 at Middlesex Community College. The Worcester Center for Crafts is having an open- house event this Saturday aimed at kids. They have asked CNEW if we can provide a demonstrator but no one seemed to be available on short notice. Thanks to Dave Eaton for taking action on the grinder Editorial, ctd. and sharpening jig that CNEW donated to the Craft get through that much wood and you could only get Center this month. Dave made sure these items were a general idea of how the tool is used – neither live purchased, delivered, and installed. viewing nor video really lets you see exactly where Frank White reported that Peters Valley Craft Center the cutting edge is, what direction itʼs going, how far in New Jersey has some woodturning-themed Summer below or above centre the tool tip is, etc. And even workshops. See www.petersvalley.org for details. At if you could igure out all those variables, it may not the moment the site only lists workshops for the 2007 be obvious which ones are important and which are season, which ended in September. merely incidental. Frank also reported that longtime CNEW member Ray Hayden died in September. He was 95. Graeme Beth Ireland will be demoing artistic wood turning for the Eastern MA Guild of Woodworkers on

PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor Page 3 THE CNEW SKEW VOLUME 20 ISSUE 10 Design Discussion So how, if at all, do we apply the Golden Mean in turning? None of the panel used the Golden Mean in Graeme Young their design process and none of us thought it a good This is an expansion on the design discussion that idea to slavishly produce work adhering closely to this occupied the second half of the October meeting. We “ideal”. Even Mike Darlow, an author whose work I covered quite a few points, including some that had often ind excessively technical and inicky, recently little to do with design as such. published an article arguing against reliance on the First up was a discussion of the Golden Mean, also Golden Mean. Something I learned a long time ago: known as the Golden Proportion or Golden Section. Rules The proportion in question is 1:phi where phi is the are for the Obedience of Fools Greek letter Phi, representing an irrational number and the Guidance of Wise Men. with the value 1.618034.... You can construct such a Of course, deliberately avoiding the Golden Proportion rectangle with ruler and compass as follows will get you a lot of ugly bowls. So will “wasting” the • Draw a square (red in the diagram) with sides minimum amount of wood by removing just enough equal to the length of the short side of your desired to make the outside round and then digging out the rectangle inside. That approach tends to produce bowls with • Find the midpoint of a side and extend the compass straight sides and lat bottoms – boring if not downright from there to one of the non-adjacent corners ugly. You can keep the same height and diameter but • Draw an arc, continuing past the side the compass remove less from the inside and more from the outside. rests on This is not only easier, it allows you to make a lot of • Extend that side to meet the arc. This establishes the more interesting shapes. And if you cut away wood to length of the long side of your rectangle make the most pleasing shape you can instead of the biggest, then measure the results, youʼll probably ind a proportion not far from the Golden Mean in there somewhere. Hal Mahon put up one of his pieces for discussion. Nobody took issue with the proportions but we did feel that the overall form could be improved. Near the base, the form narrows gradually then makes a sudden turn towards the foot. It would be greatly improved by smoothing out (fairing) the curve from the largest diameter to the foot. Will showed a lexible plastic rule he uses for playing with curves. French curves are also useful for this. The Golden Mean has been used in art and architecture Not far into the discussion, Will made the point that since the ancient Greeks and became especially popular it was important to keep purpose in mind. The design during the Renaissance. Studies have found that if considerations for a functional salad bowl are quite people are shown rectangles of various proportions, the different from those of a bowl designed to sit on a shelf Golden Rectangle is the one most commonly found to and look elegant. The salad bowl needs a wide foot, or be most pleasing. a wide base and no foot at all, to make it stable. The

PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor Page 4 THE CNEW SKEW VOLUME 20 ISSUE 10 elegant bowl will usually have a small foot to lift it running the occasional bowl through the bandsaw. Iʼve off the surface it sits on. The salad bowl should have done this a few times and it really is educational. some heft to it so it doesnʼt fell like it might break if Somebody mentioned the work of Binh Pho during handled roughly. The elegant bowl should look and feel the discussion of thinness. We didnʼt take this up but light and delicate. The rim of the salad bowl should my own opinion is that if we must have categories, be designed to make it easy to hold; there is no such Binh Pho better its the traditional category of painter constraint on the rim of the elegant bowl. or sculptor. Forget the lathe, forget the wood, forget Someone mentioned Richard Raffanʼs suggestion that the high level of craftsmanship that enables Binh to the foot and the curve of the bowl should be such that if produce those very thin, consistent vessels. All that is you removed the only preparing the canvas for the painting and piercing foot and extended that is the whole point of the work. Binh has taken a step the curve, the forward in using a canvas which is 3-dimensional while bowl would sit most painters still limit themselves to two dimensions. on or just above In conjunction with the piercing, this allows the viewer the table, as in to look through the front surface of the work and see the the irst diagram. inside of the back surface, an effect more often found The foot should in sculpture. Until very recently, all Binh Phoʼs work not be so shallow has been on thin turned wood but I think this should relative to the be considered equivalent to a painter choosing to work curve that the on canvas, or watercolour paper, or rough plywood, or bowl would be aluminium – itʼs just a substrate chosen to complement buried in the the particular style of painting. In fact, in some recent table as in the work Binh has done away with the wood entirely. second diagram. If anyone had been paying close attention, in the Nobody had any American Crafts magazine that Frank passed around strong opinions there is an advert for the Function+Art Gallery in on the usefulness Chicago. It shows two forms of the same work by Binh of this as a guide Pho, one in wood and the other in cast glass. although it does prevent a very wide, shallow foot At the end, the discussion went a little off-topic onto (which is generally a Good Thing). the subject of inishes. Will again noted that if you Somewhere along the way the question of thinness was are producing for sale, you should produce what raised. We concluded that this was largely a fad, often people want to buy. In the Northeast that means dark used to show the turnerʼs mastery of the craft without and shiny. Finishes that can give a high gloss include adding anything to the aesthetics of the turning. Some lacquers, urethane oil and pretty much any inish that artistic turning does depend on being very thin for builds a inish. Graeme was not keen on the amount its effect, but there are probably just as many artistic of time it took to apply the multiple coats required and turnings that work only because the walls are very was frustrated by spending a lot of time sanding out all thick. Consistent thickness is generally more important the scratches only to have swirls, brush marks and even than making a turning as thin as possible. From a purely runs appear in the inishing stage. Graemeʼs preference practical viewpoint, inconsistent thickness increases was for oils like tung oil and products like Formbyʼs the possibility of cracking. A thin rim leads a viewer to tung oil varnish which penetrate with out leaving swirls expect that the piece will be light: a thick, heavy base or marks and give a much latter inish. A high gloss can will be an unpleasant surprise when she or he picks up be achieved in most cases by bufing. the turning. Even worse is a piece that is mostly quite thin but very thin in one spot: someone will inevitably put a light behind it. To really see how consistent a wall thickness you are achieving, Raffan recommends

PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor Page 5 THE CNEW SKEW VOLUME 20 ISSUE 10 Q. Would you be interested in having a panel discus- Club Poll Results sion instead of a turning demo? If so, what topic(s)? Here are the results of the club poll, recently conduct- A. Yes (10), No (1), Total 11 votes. ed on the CNEW website. Even allowing for the fact Suggested topics: design (8), spalted wood (7), drying that not all members have web access, the results were methods(7), pricing your work (6), another topic (2). rather disappointing: only 14 members took the time Multiple-answer question. to ill in the survey. Some members did not answer every question and some questions allowed multiple Q. What type of demonstrations are the most useful answers, which is why the total for each question is for you? not always 14. A: design (7), projects (6), standard tool use (6), use of uncommon tools (5), surface decoration (3), seg- Q. Are there any CNEW members you would like to mented turning (2). Multiple-answer question. see do a demo? A. Yes (2), No (1), Total: 3 votes. Q. Would you bring in something for an “Instant Gal- lery” if the items were critiqued? Q. For club-demos this year what would you like to A. Yes (9), No (0), Total 9 votes. see most. A. inials for boxes (10), hollow-forms (8), unusual Q. How long should the demonstration section of the materials (8), specialty tools – hook, coring, etc. (8), meeting be? tool sharpening (6), segmented turning (6), natural A. 90 minutes (6), 60 minutes (4), 30 minutes (2), edge bowls (4). Multiple-answer question. Total 12 votes.

Q. What do you think your skill level is? Q. Would you participate in a “club challenge”? A. Very basic (2), novice (3), intermediate (4), ad- A. Yes (3), likely (8), very unlikely (3), Total 14 votes. vanced (3), Total 12 votes, nobody classed themselves as non-turner or expert. Q. Would you like to do a club demo this year? A. Yes (2), maybe (1), maybe with help (1), no (2), Q. Do you think you need help - or that a mentor can Total 6 votes. provide help? A. I want help in some areas (2), mentors could help (5), mentors do help (3), mentors have not helped (0). Total 10 votes.

Q. How many BUSINESS MEETINGS did you “not like”? A. Every one was good (2); A couple not good (2); Several left something to be desired (4). No votes for “50% arenʼt worth it” or worse, but one vote for “I only come for the demo or wood swap”. Total 9 votes.

Q. How many of the meeting DEMOʼs did you “not like”? A. Every one was good (1); A couple not good (6); Several left something to be desired (1). No votes for “50% arenʼt worth it” or worse. Total 8 votes.

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Bill Leger – Padauk and Red Oak Bowl

Frank White – Mountain Ash

Hal Mahon – Laminated form Show and Tell Photographs by Mike Stone Graeme Young – Trio of Oak Burl Bowls (Cored)

Bill LeClerc – Maple/Walnut Open Segmented Bowl

Rick Angus – Spalted Maple Bowl

Arnie Paye – Maple/Walnut Turned and Scroll Sawn

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Joe Harbey – Red Cedar Bowl

Paul Charbonneau – Spalted Maple Vessel

Bill LeClerc – Maple/Cherry Bowl

Paul Charbonneau explaining his bowl-cutting bandsaw jig Frank White – Maple Burl/Walnut/ Ebony/Ivory Urn

A 25 Sagamore Road Worcester, MA 01605

Phone: 508-753-8183 C Fax: 508-797-5626 E R N E T T Email: [email protected] R P AL HA NE C W ENGLAND

Central New England Woodturners A Chapter of the American Association of Woodturners

On the web: www.cnew.org

To join or renew your membership, print this form and either bring it to the next meeting with cash or check for $20 made payable to CNEW, or mail the form along with a check to:

Treasurer Central New England Woodturners c/o Worcester Center For Crafts 25 Sagamore Road Worcester, MA 01650

Volume 20 Issue 9 September 2007 Presidentʼs Message design. Letʼs keep this separate from Show & Tell – Show & Tell is for work youʼve done recently, for Are We Having Fun? We would like to welcome guests the design discussion we want to see the good, the bad and a new member, Bill Ledger. Norm Mancuso was on and the downright ugly, no matter how old or new. Of the Yankee Symposium Committee and reported that course, if a particular piece happens to fall into both the symposium was a great success and returned our categories, we wonʼt refuse to talk about it. $1000 seed money, which was a bonus. Design is the only topic we will be considering, not We have our booth reserved for the Worcester Craft skill (or lack of) in turning or inishing. So if you have Center Fair; I hope the members will participate in a piece that you abandoned because you didnʼt know setting up and manning of the booth for sales. I hope what to do with it bring it in, toolmarks, tearout and enough members will respond to the call in January all. If you have an outstanding example of good or for the Woodworks Show at the Big E in Springield: bad design that dates back to before you discovered it promises to be better than ever. Our booth will be the beneits of power sanding, bring it in. If you have adjacent to the Gallery area, to watch over the items a piece that was going really well until you screwed that will be on display. I understand Charlie Croteauʼs up the inish, or the carving, or the pyrography, bring Project Goodwill booth will be there also. it in. Beyond “Design”, we really donʼt have an agenda for I would like to thank the membership for approving the this discussion. I hope that the main focus will be on purchase of a new Grinder and Jig setup that our own speciic examples of good and bad design – the ones you Dave Eaton will install for the Craft Center, Yea Dave bring in. But if anyone wants to open up the discussion Thanks. Also remember that we voted to participate in into general design principles, we can do that too. the Spirit of Wood carving show in October, we will need members to man the booth. I would like to thank Steve Reznek for the very informative demonstration Graeme on segmented bowls, which I think could be carried over to use on other forms with a little ingenuity. Contents Keep Turning and Have Fun, Presidentʼs Message 1 AL Editorial 1 Club Oficers 2 Editorial Upcoming Events 2 The special feature at next monthʼs meeting will be Will Hunt, Frank White and myself leading a discussion on Minutes of Last Meeting 3 the subject of design. This, we hope, will not just be Melvyn Firmager Demo/Class 4 the three of us droning on and on about design in the abstract until everyone falls asleep. It is intended to be Segmented and Insert Bowls 5 an interactive session in which we discuss the pieces that you have brought in as examples of good and bad Show & Tell 7

PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor Page 2 THE CNEW SKEW VOLUME 20 ISSUE 9 Club Oficers and Contact Info for 2007 President, Al Faul 978-534-3683 [email protected] VP, Internal, Reid Gilmore 508-856-5894 [email protected] VP, External, Mary Maguire 603-899-5094 [email protected] Secretary, Tim Elliott 603-778-3834 [email protected] Treasurer, Norma Hogan 508-248-5525 [email protected] Newsletter, Graeme Young 508-485-8271 [email protected] Video Librarian, Al Faul 978-534-3683 [email protected] Book Librarian, Ray Boutotte 978-368-0004 [email protected] Webmaster, Dave Eaton 508-653-6364 [email protected] Photography, Henry Fairlie [email protected]

Spirit of Wood Show Transforming Vision: The Wood The Spirit of Wood carving, turning and scrollsawing Sculpture of William Hunter, 1970-2005 show will be at Middlesex Community College in Wood Turning Center, Philadelphia Bedford, MA on October 21st. We have had a booth at this show in past years but support has been limited. If Oct. 5 - Dec. 8, 2007. This is the irst retrospective we are to participate as a club this year, we need people exhibition of the work of seminal American artist to commit to manning the booth – and actually show William Hunter, a native of California. The exhibition up! documents Hunterʼs emergence as a sculptor of groundbreaking signiicance in the early 1970ʼs. The show also has a competition, if anyone is interested Educational programs at the Wood Turning Center in submitting turned (or, indeed, carved) work for include dialogues between William Hunter, curators judging. and collectors about his work, their insights, and how For details, contact Roger Melanson at (978) 368 5923 the artistʼs work inspires and touches their lives. More or [email protected]. details at www.woodturningcenter.org WoodWorks 2008 Itʼs not too early to gear up for a bigger, better, Worcester Center for Crafts more proitable Project Goodwill at WoodWorks, W. 25th annual Festival of Crafts Springield 2008! Plus, to encourage lots of entries into November 23 – 25, 2007 the SawDust Cafe Instant Gallery Competition we have The Festival of Crafts on Thanksgiving weekend is an inally smartened up and will accept entries for one, exciting and much-anticipated Worcester event. The two or three days. Details can be found on our web site: Festival includes 55 of the inest artists juried from the http://www.woodworksevents.com/gallery.shtml . The Northeast, who will be selling their hand-crafted work Woodworks show will be at the big E fairgrounds in including: jewelry, pottery, glass, hand-woven textiles, Springield Jan 11-13. woodturned bowls, furniture & lamps. Visitors to this warm and intimate crafts fair, held in our gallery and Election of New Oficers studios, will ind unique items for everyone on their gift lists. At the December meeting we will be electing new club oficers for 2008. As I noted at the last meeting, I will The event also serves as a fundraiser, providing support be standing down as Newsletter Editor next year so for ongoing programs, services and general operations consider doing your part for the club by volunteering of the Craft Center. for this or any other position. Page 3 THE CNEW SKEW VOLUME 20 ISSUE 9 Minutes of April Meeting October: panel discussion on design (Frank White, Graeme Young, Will Hunt) Tim Elliott November: George Guadiane (Georgeʼs website is New/visitors (hope these are right... sorry, didnʼt get turnedbygeorge.com) - bring a piece for Project them checked): Jerry Sandlat, Bill Ledger, Katherine Goodwill Bemis. December: Holiday potluck, gift swap, and elections Treasurer Norma Hogan reported that there has been no Our photographer Henry Fairlie will not be able to activity in the account for the past month. Our balance attend the October meeting. We need an alternate for stands at $2149.31. that night. Henry also notes that there is a general woodworking club starting in the Foxborough area. Kathi Parker [[email protected]] seeks vendors Their organizational meeting was Sep 12. for a fair at Artspace in Maynard Nov 30 - Dec 2. The booth fee is $75. Belated thanks to Dominic Leroux for donating the meat we ate at our August picnic. The Arrowmont totem pole exhibit contains one section created by CNEW more than 10 years ago. They are Charlie Croteau reported on Project Goodwill. The expanding the exhibit and we can submit another national organization held a gala fundraising event in section if there is suficient interest. California on July 24, which Charlie attended. Several CNEW donations were sold in the $200 - $300 range, The Woodworks show will be at the big E fairgrounds in including those by Will Hunt, Steve Reznek, and Mary Springield again Jan 11-13. This year, the gallery will Maguire. In all, turnings contributed $1105 to the be next to our booth so that there is more opportunity to $880K total at this event. Gene is still happy to accept watch it. Project Goodwill expects to exhibit/sell there donations to the Freedom Pen project. as part of our booth. The wood swap was especially abundant this month. The Spirit of Wood woodcarverʼs show will be Oct 21. Special thanks to Dave Eaton and Alan Gilburg. We CNEW plans to have a booth. also had 3 $10 gift certiicates from Craft Supplies - JoHannes Michelson will demonstrate making his hats many thanks to them for their generous support. at Middlesex Community College in Bedford, MA on Sep 8. See the CNEW website for more details. Firmager (ctd. from p. 4) Norm Mancuso reported that income from the Yankee Symposium was suficient that the committee is These tools and their usage is covered in his videos that returning our $1000 seed money. I believe the CNEW club has in its library (which is where I irst saw them). Well worth watching them and Dave Eaton attended a demo last week on Cape Cod by learn something new to add to your stable of tools. Bill Grumbine. He picked up two of Billʼs videos for our library. Dave will also respond to Hartville Toolʼs offer to give CNEW members a 20% discount on all orders in exchange for a copy of our member list. See the link on the CNEW website. We will again have a booth at the show run by the Worcester Center for Crafts on the weekend of Thanksgiving. Lyle Jamieson has offered to demo for CNEW when he travels through the area in February. Several members have already seen his demo. There was not suficient interest to pursue this. Reid Gilmore listed upcoming program topics: Fork Tool

PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor Page 4 THE CNEW SKEW VOLUME 20 ISSUE 9 Two Days with Melvyn Firmager convex curves: you canʼt use it for turning the inside of Peter Teubel a bowl. I tried iguring out a way to make a jig for it, but I mastered hand sharpening it in the meantime. Itʼs The Ocean State Woodturners club hosted a 2-day really quite easy to hand sharpen it if you have a smooth program with Melvyn Firmager. The irst day was a running grinder with properly trued/balanced wheels. demonstration and the second was a hands-on class in Angelo Iafrateʼs shop. I attended both days. Melvyn is The next tool we used was the “Scrapey Gouge”. a wonderful teacher and has a good sense of humor. He Basically, itʼs an asymmetrical ingernail grind with kept us laughing all day. what looks like an 89° bevel on the tip. One wing is ground proud of the other depending on the rotation of Iʼve seen Melvynʼs videos and I was always intrigued your lathe (outboard vs inboard). Itʼs basically used as with his very odd grinds and outright strange tools he a scraper to create a “shelf” for the next tool. uses to make his hollow forms. Well, I inally got to see and learn how to not only make them but also use The “Swept Back Gouge” is a radically asymmetrical them. gouge. Itʼs used for plunging into the shelf created by There were only two other students in the class, so we had Melvyn all to ourselves. Given that his basic class is usually 3 days, we concentrated on tool sharpening and technique rather than design given the time constraints. I purchased a set of pewter “templates” from Melvyn so I could refer to them when re-shaping my tools. Below are photos of them to help show the really alien grinds he uses! First was his “Nib Gouge”. This is a unique grind that deies explanation. You just have to see it. The the scrapey gouge to hog out material. Itʼs tricky to use but only in the fact it requires an exact angle to work. But once it does, wow....it really works. The 3⁄8˝ “Irish Grind Gouge” is a ingernail grind with the wings ground back a bit more than 1˝ but not sharpened all that distance. Looking at it will initially give one the feeling that a skew is a far safer tool, but properly used, itʼs quite tame. Used basically as a long reach spindle gouge for deep but narrow coves. The “Firmager Parting Tool” looks like a really long thin parting tool, but the tip is ground in such a way that itʼs used in the same manner a gouge is used. This is what Melvyn used to cut those deep recesses between his discs in his Sea Flower series. nib works great to cut a path for the rest of the gouge The “Fork Tool” (photo on page 3) is the most bizarre, to follow. When taking a shallow cut (nib out of the yet makes the most sense when you use it. The bottom wood), the resulting surface that can be obtained is part does the cutting while the top part acts as the truly remarkable. THIS is the gouge to use to leave “bevel” which you rub to guide the cut. Itʼs not catch- a “start-sanding-at-220-grit” inish. Not only is this proof, but itʼs as close as youʼll ever come to that with grind useful for inish cuts, it can really hog off wood a hollowing tool. quickly. The only caveat is that itʼs only functional for ctd. on page 3

PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor Page 5 THE CNEW SKEW VOLUME 20 ISSUE 9 Ten Reasons To Make Segmented Bowls a joint. No matter what – Joinery Counts! You always need a good, sharp saw, good glues, the ability to sand Steve Reznek lat, waste blocks, face plates and clamps. Lots of 10. You think they are cool clamps. 9. You like the challenge Safety: 8. You are bored with just bowls 7. You like to show off 1. If you use “super” glue, be sure to protect your eyes 6. Why use free wood when you can buy kiln dried? and the rest of you from spray. Let it dry and wear 5. You can use more scraps for your wood stove masks. No matter what! 4. You want to brush up your high school math skills 2. Keep your ingers away from saw blades. Use push- 3. You donʼt have enough tools already ers. Be extra, extremely careful if the blade is not per- 2. Your spouse thinks you donʼt spend enough time in pendicular!! the shop 3. When you cut a ring away from a “waste” board or 1. You donʼt have enough frustration in your life block, be sure you can catch the pieces. Use something on the tail stock to hold the freed piece and go slowly. To latten faces on the lathe for mating, use a lat board with sand paper. Press it across the ring until the face is lat. The outer edge will curve “down”, so leave extra width. To latten a ring that is too thin for “jumbo” jaws, mount a face plate on the board. To assure that ring centers are aligned on mated faces, use face plates. The developing bowl is mounted on a faceplate on the headstock. The next ring is mounted on a board on another faceplate and held over a fat cone center on the tailstock. Now the mating surfaces can be brought together carefully for gluing. The “standard” approach to segmented turning using rings has a number of advantages. Expansion is less of a problem, but only if the base is segmented. If the base is solid wood, there will be areas where the grain direction does not match up with the irst ring. Complex designs are easier, if only because many people have already worked out clever ways of producing them and there are lots of books and tapes on the subject. There is no end grain to turn or inish. Of course, there are also drawbacks to ring construction. You have to do the “corners” right and there is no way to align the grains completely. Movement is a problem, especially with platters unless the bottom is layered. Jigs, miters, and sleds are essential, as is a good, accurate table saw – that is not buried under a pile of turnings in progress. You have to latten, which makes it worthwhile to have equipment like a disc sander and a planer. The only sure way to prevent joint In segmented turning, the two big issues are the time problems is to align the grain! and effort to produce an item and dimensional stabil- Cutting with the table saw blade tilted away from 90° ity. Often, the time spent cutting, sanding, gluing and allows you to get some very nice patterns, relatively assembling the parts far exceeds the time spent turning easily, and you get two dimensional curves. But... it the assembled blank. When parts are assembled with is far easier to forget what you are doing and cut your ingers off. With non-perpendicular segments you canʼt the grain running in different directions, different rates cheat and “true-up” two halves and you need “keepers” of expansion and contraction can cause noticeable to keep the parts in alignment for clamping. discontinuities and even result in complete failure of

PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor Page 6 THE CNEW SKEW VOLUME 20 ISSUE 9 the glue is dry, remove the face plate from the body and reverse mount the assembly. 17. Turn off the waste block from the top of the bowl. 18. Depending on how brave you are, you might want to drill a depth hole to keep from going through the bottom. 19. Turn away. Have a good time. 20. At some point you will see the pattern emerging. This is a good time to superglue up any joint that didnʼt get it initially. You will Segmented bowls with straight and angled segments probably ind that the tops of the dado saw Making An Insert Bowl cuts need gluing. 1. True up a board and cut the body square. 21. Finish it up and proudly show it to one and all. 2. Create two “spacer” guides. The width is the distance between two splines plus the saw kerf. * I use a spacer and cut “outside” the blade. I do not try 3. Create a “spline” spacer. The width is two saw kerfs. to cut the spline between the fence and the blade at ¹⁄8˝ Adjust by being a little smaller and thickening with lay- thickness. Neither should you! ers of masking tape. 4. Cut the irst dado. Find the middle of the square. Set the fence so the blade is in the middle with one “spacer” guide. The depth is determined such that the “uncut” portion is the top “rim”. 5. Lower the saw blade a bit and cut the outer dados. One with two “spacer” guides and one with none. The shallower depth makes the outer splines shorter. 6. True up a blank and cut the three splines*. Match the grain direction to the dados. Ideally the height of the splines should be just less than the (two) depths of the dados. This is very important if they are cross grain; or if you are cutting in more than one direction. 7. Super glue the splines into the dados. Let the glue set! 8. If you make subsequent crosscuts in a second direction, repeat steps 4, 5, 6 and 7. 9. True up a board and cut a blank for the base. 10. Mount a waste block on a faceplate and latten the A bowl similar to the one described surface using sand paper mounted on a board. 11. Glue the base onto the waste block and latten its face. Remember that the edge will be turned down a little. Leave extra diameter. You donʼt need to use super glue, have some patience. 12. Make a second waste block. Mark the center and the edges at 90 degrees. Mount it on a faceplate. 13. Mark the center of the uncut (top) face of the body. 14. Match the center of the waste block to the center of the body square and glue them together. This is a critical step. You want the turning axis to go through the middle of the body. 15. Flatten the bottom face of the body – the face with the splines showing. 16. With the body mounted on the head stock, use a “fat” live center on the tail stock to position the base. Glue the matching faces and use the tail stock to snug up the it. Match the grain on the base and body. When PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor Page 7 THE CNEW SKEW VOLUME 20 ISSUE 9

Show and Tell Photographs by Henry Fairlie

A 25 Sagamore Road Worcester, MA 01605

Phone: 508-753-8183 C Fax: 508-797-5626 E R N E T T Email: [email protected] R P AL HA NE C W ENGLAND

Central New England Woodturners A Chapter of the American Association of Woodturners

On the web: www.cnew.org

Page 7: Top: Square (?!) NE maple bowl by Alan Gilburg, Cherry burl bowl by Frank White. Middle: Segmented peppermill by Mike Stone, Graeme Youngʼs Insanity box, birdhouse ornaments by Joe Harbey, Frank Whiteʼs tiny honeysuckle form, maple winged bowl by Stan Felton. Bottom: giant red maple bowl by Dave Eaton. This page, left: Cherry NE and spalted butternut by Alan Gilburg. Below: Another cut-up by Steve Reznek.

Volume 20 Issue 8 August 2007 Presidentʼs Message Editorial Are We Having Fun? I hope this inds everybody in Hope everyone has been having a good summer and do- good health and enjoying summer, we missed some ing lots of creative things. My wife Hazel and I got es- of you at the picnic on August 4th we had a good time pecially creative and produced a collaborative piece for and plenty of food which we had donated by everybody the ConneXtions exhibit being run jointly by the AAW who came and brought a dish, also one of our members, and ISGB. We learned two lessons from this exercise. Dominic Leroux who is the owner of Leroux Meats in First, do not leave lots of work till the week before the Holden MA. (a wholesale meat supplier to restaurants deadline. Second, if you must teach an old dog new etc.). It was a very enjoyable afternoon, with a huge tricks, do not do so an hour before the show goes on. I Thanks to Ray & Lisa Boutotte for letting us use their was up until 3am two days before the piece had to be in house and yard for the picnic. Saint Paul trying to glue gold thread to brass pins. A few days later Dominic called me to offer some black walnut to our members for their taking and Dave Eaton kindly sent out an e-mail to notify everybody of the wood. For those without e-mail, contact Dominic at 508-829-9844 for the location of the wood (if itʼs still there). I am looking forward to the September meeting for another interesting demonstration. I would like to thank our members for participating in the Marshield Fair which happened in mid-August. I would also like to thank each person who has donated to the Freedom Project as I know that each person that receives a wheel chair will be grateful for the convenience it provides in their lives each day. For Now Have Fun and Enjoy Life, Contents AL Presidentʼs Message 1 Editorial 1 Club Oficers 2 Coming Events 2 Vacuum Chucking 4 Picnic Photos 5

PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor Page 2 THE CNEW SKEW VOLUME 20 ISSUE 8 Club Oficers and Contact Info for 2007 President, Al Faul [email protected] VP, Internal, Reid Gilmore [email protected] VP, External, Mary Maguire [email protected] Secretary, Tim Elliott [email protected] Treasurer, Norma Hogan [email protected] Newsletter, Graeme Young [email protected] Video Librarian, Al Faul [email protected] Book Librarian, Ray Boutotte [email protected] Webmaster, Dave Eaton [email protected] Photography, Henry Fairlie [email protected]

A.R.T. Demo Day WoodWorks 2008 A.R.T. invite you for the second time to join us for This just in from Judy Frank of WoodWorks: a demo day with JoHannes Michelsen. Our club, It was great seeing pictures of your club booth at Association of Revolutionary Turners has JoHannes WoodWorks, Springield 2007, especially the Project (re-)scheduled for a demo day on Saturday Sept 8, at Good will write-up. Itʼs not too early to gear up for Middlesex Community College in Bedford MA, and a bigger, better, more proitable Project Goodwill at we would like anyone interested to join us. The fee is WoodWorks, W. Springield 2008! Personally, I felt a real bargain at $25 per person. We decided to charge it was a great success at the last show and with more non-A.R.T. members the same fee as weʼre charging space and more planning and more people pitching ourselves to give everyone the same opportunity to see a in every year it can grow. Letʼs shoot for exponential great world class turner show his magic and techniques growth every year. of turning his awesome wooden hats. Also we will be rafling a range rider hat turned that day amongst the Plus, to encourage lots of entries into the SawDust group attending, so this is a chance to go home with one Cafe Instant Gallery Competition we have inally of JoHannesʼs wonderful hats. smartened up and will accept entries for one, two or three days. Details can be found on our web site: I need to get an idea as to how many are interested so http://www.woodworksevents.com/gallery.shtml . if need be I can put a cap on number of attendees. First Please, please I urge you as a club to start rounding come, irst served. We have a pretty large space so up your Gallery pieces. In fact we may, just maybe, hopefully there will be no need to turn anyone away. make it a requirement for complimentary booth space Also if you have any questions, or need more info and electricity to have a minimum number of pieces please feel free to write me. More details to come. submitted to the Instant Gallery. Iʼd rather not have to Mike Souter ([email protected]) 978-390-7111 keep tabs, okay folks? :-) Vice President Association of Revolutionary Turners Well, as summer comes to a close [I know, not yet - - we still have Labor Day and several good sunshine and beach days left] I hope you begin to think about CNEWʼs presence at WoodWorks, W. Springield 2008! Itʼs my favorite show that we do and I look forward to seeing each and every one of you every January. Sorry, if I donʼt remember your names, but your spirit and camaraderie stay with me during the year. Page 3 THE CNEW SKEW VOLUME 20 ISSUE 8 Arrowmont School Totem Pole Project Spirit of Wood Show Message from Sean Troy (AAW Chapters and The Spirit of Wood carving, turning and scrollsawing Membership Committee): show will be at Middlesex Community College in The following is in regards to a phone conversation I Bedford, MA on October 21st. We have had a booth at had this morning with Dave Hankey from Arrowmont. this show in past years but support has been limited. If If your chapter would be interested in being involved we are to participate as a club this year, we need people with this, please contact me or Dave. I was involved to commit to manning the booth – and actually show some years ago with making one of the sections and it up! was a blast. Your imagination is your only limit. The The show also has a competition, if anyone is interested dimensions are 20˝ dia. by 24˝ high with a hole that in submitting turned (or, indeed, carved) work for will it over a 3˝ pipe – the hole could be 32˝or 34˝. We judging. need two more to complete our second pole. Any help you can give us will be great. We also need to have all For details, contact Roger Melanson at (978) 368 5923 of the totems reinished that might be a good project or [email protected]. for some club members to come to Arrowmont for a couple of days or a weekend and work with us. So should CNEW contribute to the Arrowmont totem poles again? It is my understanding that the club produced a totem for the original poles, which went up during the 1990 AAW Symposium. Hereʼs Alan Lacerʼs write-up on the event (from the AAW website). The Unity Totem project turned out far better than anyone’s wildest dreams. In the end, 24 local chapters participated with some of the most innovative and exciting turning I have ever encountered. The pieces ranged from forms [turned] from a single block, to pieces which had as many as 40 to 50 separate turnings attached to a central component. Several weeks before the Symposium, two pipe bases were set into two four-foot deep holes with a concrete slab to support the totems. On a cold and rainy irst day of the Symposium, the segments were slipped over the pipe that passed through all segments. It went up effortlessly with the help of the Arrowmont staff, as well as several AAW members. Thanks to everyone who had a part in planning, making, and assembling the project. The inished totems had the appearance of growing directly from the woods surrounding Arrowmont. The real excitement will be watching the weathering process take effect over the next few years. The Arrowmont Totem Poles, 1990

PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor Page 4 THE CNEW SKEW VOLUME 20 ISSUE 8 A Vacuum System for Holding Conclusion There is little difference in performance between the Work on the Lathe (Part 3) two pumps. The Gast vacuum pump and AC pump both © Hal Mahon work well. The Gast is faster in pump down, but the Testing and Trouble Shooting difference in time is not important at all. My biggest In testing with the intake vacuum line shut off by its disappointment with the Gast pump is that it is not quick disconnect, the AC pump shown below would tightly enclosed against dust. My AC vacuum pump run for less than a minute and then shut down. This did is totally sealed, and pulls a better vacuum, a slightly not happen with any of the other pumps I tried. The important factor when using a 2˝ diameter chuck for cause for automatic shutdown is not irmly explained. small work. My time, the cost of a copper pipe itting As soon as I connected the pump to the Vacuum and an On/Off switch with enclosure consisted of my System Manifold the problem went away. Apparently costs over my Gast pump. (The parts shown in the the extremely high vacuum with no external connection manifold section of the Schematic are needed for both (and presumably no incoming air from a minute leak) pumps.) I cannot say how long will either pump last. caused an overload of the 11,600 BTUh pump. In actual Having already done it once, I can swap in a free new operation with a vacuum chuck on my lathe, over time AC pump from the recycling center in an hour should I and under a variety of conditions, there has never been suffer a failure. In conclusion my preference favors the a subsequent shut down. 11,600 BTUh air conditioner vacuum pump over my commercial Gast pump primarily because of its lack of There is a difference between the Gast and the AC total enclosure against dust. refrigerator pump when power is shut off. The Gast pump does not hold its vacuum with its power shut off. The vacuum inside the vacuum chuck and bowl returns to zero within a few moments. The AC pump holds its vacuum when power is shut off. Because I included a quick disconnect valve in my vacuum manifold design I can admit air into the vacuum chuck and quickly remove my bowl. Thus this difference between these two pumps is insigniicant for my use. Others might ind this difference important. I compared the time to evacuate the ten gallon portable air tank to 25˝ of mercury for the Gast and the AC pump mounted as shown here. My Gast vacuum pump pulled the air down to 25˝ Hg in about 3 seconds, but could go to no higher vacuum. The AC pump in Figure 7 required 10 seconds to evacuate the ten gallon tank to 25˝ Hg and then continued to a vacuum of 28.5˝ Hg.

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The Picnic

Charlie Croteau with friend Ann, Hazel Young Mickey Goodman Richard Vose

Mary & Joe Harbey with Phil Bowman Gene Spadi, Mike Stone and someone I donʼt know

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Dave Eaton turning a goblet Richard Vose turning a top

Charlie Croteau unwrapping a Goodwill item made by Mike Stone Mike Stone turning with a gouge about as big as the lathe and the item – a segmented vase

Ray Boutotte shows two pieces made by ... his father? Sorry Ray, I forgot some of the details

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Al Faul

A better picture of Mikeʼs segmented vase, if not of Mike

Dave Eaton preparing to ire up the lathe

Mike Stone and Mary Maguire

A 25 Sagamore Road Worcester, MA 01605

Phone: 508-753-8183 C Fax: 508-797-5626 E R N E T T Email: [email protected] R P AL HA NE C W ENGLAND

Central New England Woodturners A Chapter of the American Association of Woodturners

On the web: www.cnew.org

To join or renew your membership, print this form and either bring it to the next meeting with cash or check for $20 made payable to CNEW, or mail the form along with a check to:

Treasurer Central New England Woodturners c/o Worcester Center For Crafts 25 Sagamore Road Worcester, MA 01650

Volume 20 Issue 7 July 2007 Editorial Presidentʼs Message As I was not at the last meeting, Iʼll take this opportunity Are We Having Fun? I hope this inds everybody OK. I to talk about the tools I intended to bring in. These are had a good time at the meeting and trust that everyone the Rolly Monro hollower and the BCT VersaTool. who attended did also, I learned a lot. It is a shame that Both tools use the increasingly popular circular “cup” nobody took advantage of the open turning before the style of cutter and are primarily used for hollowing the meeting. I would like to thank our own Andy Motter inside of bowls and hollow forms. who runs Butternut Tools for his donation to the club. The Monro tool, on the left in the photo (on page 2), This year the Annual Picnic will be held at Ray & has a shield over the cutter which limits the depth of Lisa Boutotteʼs House in Lancaster. Starting time is cut and prevents the worst catches. The shield can also 1:00 Sat. August 4th in case of rain it will be held the cover different areas of the cutter, for example if you following week on the 11th. I will supply the hot dogs want to cut only with the front area and not the side. and hamburgers and soda, plates, napkins and cups etc. The articulated mount allows the cutter to be presented You should bring a dish to share. We will try to have at different angles to the wood while keeping it in the club mini lathes to turn something. Ray said he line with the shaft. The tool also comes with a longer had some wood to turn and possibly we could get him curved mount which gives more lexibility in the angle to donate some of his wood that he struggled to get in of presentation, useful for undercutting but with the Vermont for a wood swap. Please call if you have any disadvantage of taking the cutter out of line with the questions 978-534-3683 and I will try to answer them. shaft and making catches a lot more vicious. I think the video library will be pretty much under The VersaTool is a variation of the BCT SuperCut control by the September meeting. tool sold in the U.S. by Packard Woodworks. As far as I know, the VersaTool is only available in the U.K. AL – I got mine from the ToolPost (toolpost.co.uk). This tool has a square shaft with the cutter set at an angle, giving more of a shear cut and making the tool a little Contents less aggressive than if the cutter were pointed straight Presidentʼs Message 1 up. The single pivot point on the shaft allows the cutter to swing out to 90°, which takes it out of line with the Editorial 1 shaft and makes for some really nasty catches. The tool does come with a stabilizer bar that bolts into the shaft Club Oficers 2 to counteract torque but I ind even this doesnʼt help Minutes of Last Meeting 2 much if you get a bad catch. To use the Monro tool, start with the cutter pointed Home-made Tools 3 down and rotate the handle clockwise to bring the cutter up until it starts cutting. You can cut in either Using Hook Tools 4 direction, from the top towards the bottom or the other Show & Tell 6 way. This is a distinct advantage on end-grain bowls where working from the bottom towards the rim gives Directions to Picnic 8 ctd. on P. 3

PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor Page 2 THE CNEW SKEW VOLUME 20 ISSUE 7 Club Oficers and Contact Info for 2007 President, Al Faul [email protected] VP, Internal, Reid Gilmore [email protected] VP, External, Mary Maguire [email protected] Secretary, Tim Elliott [email protected] Treasurer, Norma Hogan [email protected] Newsletter, Graeme Young [email protected] Video Librarian, Al Faul [email protected] Book Librarian, Ray Boutotte [email protected] Webmaster, Dave Eaton [email protected] Photography, Henry Fairlie [email protected]

Minutes of July Meeting is some interest in having a panel discussion on design or other topics for September or October. Contact Reid Tim Elliott if you would like to demo or have some ideas. New member: Roger Boisvert CNEW is signed up for a booth at the craft fair held by Treasurer Norma Hogan was not present, but sent a the Worcester Center for Crafts in November (weekend summary to Al Faul: of Thanksgiving). Beginning balance: $1941 Steve Reznek ponted out that the current issue of Fine Ending balance: $2079 Woodworking has a very interesting review of glue Nobody showed up for open turning this month. products. They liked Titebond 3. Gorilla glue was last. Four members attended the wood harvest at Alan We will hold our annual picnic on August 4 at Ray Gilburgʼs land in Vermont. They cut down one cherry Boutotteʼs house in Lancaster. Directions are on the back tree, and carried the wood too far out to the cars. We page. The club will provide meat and drinks. Members may have another opportunity to do this in the Fall, if should bring a side dish or other complement. there is suficient interest. Thanks to Alan for offering Several members noted that the CNEW library has the opportunity. not been available for a few months - the cabinet has Phil Bowman gave a report on the AAW national not been accessible during our meeting time. We are symposium in Portland Oregon. As usual, there looking into it. were demonstrator rotations, a trade show, and Instant Gallery. Phil found the Instant Gallery a bit overwhelming this year, with over 4000 pieces in total. He passed around a few snapshots of pieces notable for being connected with CNEW, inspirational, or hideous. The Banquet took in over $100K. The highest single sale was for a collaboration between Bin Pho and Frank Sudol. The second highest sale was for a collaboration between Jacques Vesery and Betty Scarpino. Next yearʼs symposium will be in Richmond, VA. The following year will be in Albuquerque, NM. Dick Vose spoke about the “Spirit of Wood” show organised by the local woodcarving community. CNEW again plans to have a booth. The date is Sun, Oct 21. Rolly Monro and VersaTool hollowers Reid Gilmore is still seeking demonstrators for Fall meetings. Steve Reznek signed up for November. There

PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor Page 3 THE CNEW SKEW VOLUME 20 ISSUE 7 Editorial, ctd. Home-made Tools a cleaner cut but is impossible with a gouge. I ind this Reid Gilmore tool impossible to use on really wet wood: it clogs Notes from Reid Gilmore on the two home-made tools almost immediately. On drier wood it works well and he brought to last monthʼs meeting. with the cutter closed up to take only ine shavings it can produce a good inish cut. Adjusting the shield to The irst tool was a one inch wide, 4 inch thick square get the right amount of cutter exposed can be iddly and scraper that was sharpened across the front face and also you have to keep adjusting it to work in different areas on the left-hand edge for the irst 2 inch. The front face of the bowl or hollow form. The two main bolts for the and left edge are perpendicular. This tool is particularly head articulation are a particular problem: because they good for cutting the langes of wooden boxes to obtain a are inserted from opposite sides, tightening one can good friction-it between the lid and the base of the box. loosen the other. The scraper was made of M2 high speed steel obtained The VersaTool is usually started at the bottom centre form MSC Industrial. The steel blank is sold as a metal of the bowl, not at the rim. Again, a great advantage lathe bit, and is already hardened. The rectangular tool on end-grain bowls. The tool is always kept horizontal, bit (6˝ x 1˝ x 4˝ ) had to be ground on both ends using at centre height. Assuming the bowl is already partly a 60 grit wheel for relatively rapid removal of the steel. hollowed, push the tool straight in to the centre. The tool was plunged into water to prevent overheating. Because of the way the cutter is angled, it wonʼt cut. A 1˝ x1/2˝ tongue was ground on one end, and this was Pull the handle towards you, pivoting the cutter until inserted into a wooden handle made of purpleheart. A the low part of the cutting edge makes contact and it 1˝ long, 1˝ diameter piece of copper pipe was used as a begins to cut. Now pull the entire tool towards you ferrule. The working end of the tool was then carefully and cut across the (fairly lat) bottom of the bowl. This ground. works great until you reach the point where the wood The Vortex tool was my attempt to duplicate a tool that curves up into the side of the bowl. If you just keep Stewart Batty used in a demonstration at Albany several going, the curvature of the wood has the same effect 3 years ago. The Vortex tool is made form a ⁄8˝ diameter as pivoting the cutter further into the wood, resulting 6˝ long cylinder of M2 steel (also from MSC). The in an arm-wrenching catch. This is, in my experience, Vortex tool resembles a spindle gouge without a lute. the big problem with this tool – you have to maintain Instead of a lute, the topside of the point is ground at the angle of presentation between the cutter and the about a 15˚ angle so that a 1˝ long diamond shape is wood or it will become violently aggressive very produced. The bottom edge of the tool is ground like quickly. For working the sides of a vessel, swiveling a very pointed spindle gouge, with sides swept back the tip will move the cutter angle towards the safe zone. roughly 4˝. The tool is useful for making the type of Also, working from top to bottom is safer because the cuts one might make with the pointed edge of the skew changing angles towards the bottom will disengage the chisel. Iʼm not sure I have been able to duplicate the cutter. The VersaTool is a better roughing tool than the shape used by Stewart Batty. So far, I have not been Monro because it does not clog, while the Monro is a able to locate a photo of this tool on the Internet. I better inishing tool. One very useful thing you can do havenʼt made a wooden handle for the Vortex gouge with the VersaTool is turn the whole tool 90° clockwise, yet, but instead have used Trent Bosch “Super Tool start it near the centre and cut to the centre, removing Handle”. These handles have a red plastic outside and that nub thatʼs so dificult to remove otherwise. Even if 3 take a ⁄8˝ diameter tool, which is held in place with a I never used it for anything else, Iʼd keep the tool for pair of setscrews. that purpose. These are both useful tools but they work in ways that are very different from a gouge. Both take practice and perseverance to use effectively but if you do a lot of end-grain work they are certainly worth considering.

PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor Page 4 THE CNEW SKEW VOLUME 20 ISSUE 7 the Termite tool from Oneway Manufacturing. Itʼs more Hook Tool Usage a “ring” tool as the tip is closed. This may aid in some Dave Eaton dificult tool tip placement issues but may also clog up “Hook” tools are a wonderful woodturning tool, or tool with chips more as it does not allow an easy escape for bit, intended primarily for use in the removal of end- the freshly cut ribbons. grain stock. In fact it excels at removing end grain, for Before using the hook tool, typically the outside of the boxes, vases, hollow forms or even bowls, though we object will have already been turned to a inal shape, tend to shy away from larger end grain projects since at least in the area you desire to be hollowed. This the issue of retaining a pith in the object can lead to gives an approximate shape target and wall thickness problems. Itʼs unique design provides for easily reach- to hollow to and alleviates stressing the wood beyond ing deep into stock to create an open or hollow form itʼs structural rigidity limits that may cause fractures in while typically leaving a superior, very smooth in- thinner walled turnings. To turn the interior, there are a ish that other tools such as scrapers cannot do. It can few important things to remember: also be an excellent and highly eficient substitute for a traditional bowl gouge when performing side-grain 1) Youʼll likely need to raise your tool rest to engage turning especially where a traditional shaped bowl the sharp edge and aid the tool in getting a good gouge becomes unsafe to use because of depth or other “bevel rub”. factors. In fact the edge and shape of the hook tool is 2) You may need to back the tool rest away from the essentially a gougeʼs cutting edge on its side. work a few inches when working right near the “front” allowing the supporting handle or rod to maintain good contact with the tool rest. 3) Though you can start the hook tool cut by swing- ing the handle well toward the front of the lathe and rotating to about 45 degrees, drilling a depth hole is highly suggested for not only setting your vessel depth, but also greatly aids to the ease in which the hook tool bit can “grab” a new cut. The best size diameter to pre-dill is that about equal to, or greater than, the diameter of the bit curve or outside diameter. For instance 5⁄8˝ dia. is ideal in most work using a Wolok bit. 4) The optimum position for the tool to be placed with- A major issue for many turners is beginning to under- in the vessel will be from the 6 oʼclock to 9 oʼclock stand how to use the hook tool. Since this is a special- position. This is the area inside the diameter of the ized tool, not easily made and sharpened, there seems vessel with 6 oʼclock being closest to the bed ways to be a lack of information on it – but itʼs been around and 9 oʼclock being closest to the front of the lathe, many years. where you would usually stand for spindle turning. 5) When reaching far into a turning, the tool rest should Del Stubbs, Mitch Wolok and Alan Lacer are reported be brought closer to the work and possibly raised to have helped this tool emerge to become more popu- again to aid the cut. Longer reaches or deeper cuts lar as of late. Mitch Wolok and Andre Martel each sell may even require a more robust holder rod. Usually a version of the hook tool bit made of hardened steel a 5⁄8˝ dia. rod will surface but Mitch Wolok noted that while Alan Lacer advocates and teaches how to fab- he uses a 1˝ or 12˝ rod for hollow works as deep as ricate one yourself using rudimentary metalworking three feet with a modiied, downward bent tip. skills. 6) For smoothing the interior sides pull the rod close to Home-made tools donʼt cost the $30-75 that the hard- the vessel wall with the tool almost vertical (safe) to ened commercially manufactured bits cost but do wear perform a shear scrape. Practice and good tool tech- fast and needs sharpening often. Another alternative is nique here will leave a inished cut without tear-out.

PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor Page 5 THE CNEW SKEW VOLUME 20 ISSUE 7 7) When cutting the last material in the bottom of the The sanding drum is not very aggressive and therefore work, starting a cut may become progressively dif- allows the turner a little more leeway in “grinding” icult. A scraper may help to clean up. than other, way too aggressive methods like a grind- 8) NEVER allow the tool to be rotated to where the ening wheel, which would certainly make quick work of tire sharp edge will engage the work. The cut will be sharpening the bit... and reduce its life many fold if any extremely aggressive and potentially uncontrollable, sharpening errors occur. As you may perceive, what we likely winding up in a catch or blown up piece. look for in re-sharpening is not removal of material but Use Caution: The Hook Tool should be presented to the rather a ine dressing of the cutting edge. As the tool wood surface in a vertical position, like a tire is on a bevel becomes narrower it will become more aggres- car, with the bit end of handle tilted slightly downward. sive. Slight rotation will then initiate a cut. To sharpen the inside, it is best to use a ine round or Never try to engage the tip fully rotated to a horizontal cone shaped diamond dressing stone or a “slip-stone” position, like a basketball hoop! You will lose all pos- with a round or conical shaped edge. Stroke along the sibility of the bevel rubbing and it will present like a inside edge of the tool maintaining a lat contact at all knife edge to the spinning wood. This is way too ag- times. Once a sharp edge is developed, typically the gressive of a cut and you will ind a heart wrenching interior of the tool bit will take many light dressings catch results every time. before the outside of the tool will need any touch up as well. If you maintain your edges with a ine hone rather Remember also, that although hook tools are extremely than more aggressive methods, your tool bit will last for eficient for most end-grain work, in some situations, if a very long time. you expect to encounter hard knots or where you may wish to create tightly undercut or rolled edges on closed The bottom line with this tool is: forms, with sharp angles of departure from the entrance Keep it sharp of the vessel where the shape of the tool may not allow There are really no rigid rules on tool position except the cutting edge to reach well, to protect your hook tool that it is not designed to operate in a horizontal posi- from damage in extreme conditions and maintaining tion. good control over the cut being produced, it is suggested you switch to use of a machinist tool bit tool like a Two Flute Ball End Mill or a heavier, stouter bent tool like Andre Martelʼs extra large bit. If you wish to experiment with vessel shapes you also Things to Learn from Trees may choose to try different shapes of hook proiles, which may accommodate your need quite well. The • Itʼs important to have roots. cutting characteristics of one shape might be useful and • In todayʼs complex world, it pays to branch out. could offer areas of performance where another shape • Donʼt pine away over old lames. may fall short. • If you really believe in something, donʼt be afraid to go out on a limb. Generally the tool, when presented to the wood in a • Be lexible so you donʼt break when a harsh wind proper manner will cut very well, generating long thin blows. ribbons of waste. It will tend to pull itself backwards • Sometimes you have to shed your old bark in order into the vessel once the cut begins as well. If it seems to grow. not to be cutting quite as nice as you hope then it is • Grow where youʼre planted. likely dull. • Itʼs perfectly OK to be a late bloomer. Sharpening the outside of the bit can usually be done • Avoid people who would like to cut you down. easily and quickly by making a few strokes lat across • You canʼt hide your true colours as you approach the outer diameter or bevel edge of the bit using a ine the autumn of your life. lat honing stone. For more aggressive sharpening needs, a Dremel tool with a sanding drum works great.

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Top: Tim Elliott, maple bowl with chip-carved rim Steve Reznek, mahogany and maple bowls in maple stand Left: Mike Peters, vase in mys- tery wood (elm?) Right: Emma Peters, cherry bowl – her irst ever!

Show and Tell Photographs by Henry Fairlie

Alan Gilburg, footed bowl in ash & walnut Reid Gilmore, square bowl in ambrosia maple Mary Maguire, pens and letter opener (made some for her sister, some for Freedom Pen project)

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Top: Al Faul, segmented bowl in maple & walnut. Paul Charbonneau, maple bowl with extensive texturing Centre: Alan Gilburg, box with colored top and peppermill in red maple. Segmented bowl by Will Hunt. Bottom: Dominic Leroux & Buzz Hawes, collaborative bowl with router-modiied-segment method. Steve Reznek, bowl in cherry crotch.

A 25 Sagamore Road Worcester, MA 01605

Phone: 508-753-8183 C Fax: 508-797-5626 E R N E T T Email: [email protected] R P AL HA NE C W ENGLAND

Central New England Woodturners A Chapter of the American Association of Woodturners

On the web: www.cnew.org

Annual Picnic Saturday August 4th From Western MA: Take Rte. 2 east to exit 35 for Rte. 70. Take a right off the exit ramp and then a left onto Travel Instructions to Ray Boutotteʼs Rte. 70 south. Follow Rte. 70 thru center of Lancaster. 73 Carter St. Lancaster, MA Continue till you drive under a train bridge. Immedi- 978-368-0004 ately after the bridge take a left onto Carter Street. If From Southern/Eastern MA: Take the Mass Pike west you enter Clinton you have gone too far. to Exit 11A, the exit for Rte. 495. Proceed north on From Worcester MA: Take Rte. 290 to Rte. 190 north. Rte. 495 to exit 27, the exit for Rte. 117. Take right At the end of Rte. 190 take Rte. 2 east. Follow direc- off the exit ramp and follow Rte. 117 west thru Bolton tions for ʻWestern MAʼ center until you get to Rte. 110. Take a left onto Rte. 110 south. Go straight thru a 5-way intersection stay- From Northern MA (North of Rte. 2): Drive south on ing on Rte 110, and take your irst right onto Mill Rte. 495 until you get to Exit 27. Follow the directions Steet. Take your second left onto Carter Street. If you for ʻSouthern/Eastern MAʼ. reach Rte. 70 you missed it.

Volume 20 Issue 6 June 2007 Editorial Presidentʼs Message I hope everyone who attended had fun at the Yankee Are we having fun? I hope that everyone who went to Symposium, I know I did. I went to two demonstrations the Yankee Symposium enjoyed themselves, as I went that Iʼd seen before, at the AAW Symposium in and had a ball, a very enjoyable experience. I saw a Providence, and learned something new at both. great many people that I knew and saw many wonder- Graeme Priddle explained again why he has so many ful seminars and learned a lot. There were tools to buy holes in has faceplates – so he can use only holes near and prizes to be won. There were some awesome dem- the edge of the piece for eccentric mounting. That onstrators to see with their varied ways of doing things makes it easier to clean up the bottom of the piece which they made look easy and the Instant gallery was by turning away the screw holes. And this time I was illed with some very interesting pieces. Last month we listening when Michael Hosaluk explained why you had a turning session before the meeting, we also had should never touch the joint area of a box after aligning quite a load of wood for the wood swap, also Charlie the two parts (if you do, the outside surface will no brought in a load of wood for the Project Goodwill longer be concentric with the mating surfaces and the which will be put to good use by the members com- box will only it properly in one orientation). pleting some more items which will be auctioned off. I Of the demonstrators I saw, the best were Mark Sirri would like to personally thank our one and only Dave showing how to make a rolling pin for your mother-in- Eaton who gave a great demo on the hook tool which law (itʼs bent in the middle) and Mark St. Leger making I inally learned how to use and in doing so conquered a rock-a-bye box. They were both excellent presenters, the ring tool as it has been a problem tool for me. They explained clearly what they were doing and got through are both basically the same, just rub the bevel and keep the material on time. Or at least everything seemed at approximately six oʼclock and it works ine. Remem- clear, until I tried the rock-a-bye box and discovered ber to bring in a tool or something to tell about at the just how inadequate my notes were. It took me six tries July meeting it should be interesting . Till then, before I got a reasonable reproduction of Markʼs shape and knew how Iʼd done it. AL None of the demonstrations I saw were limited to ordinary round turning. They all involved some Contents element of eccentric, off-axis or interrupted cutting. Presidentʼs Message 1 Right up to the last, when Jimmy Clewes drilled a hole in the face of a 10 x 4 x 3 plank of walnut, put it on a Editorial 1 screw chuck and proceeded to turn an oriental box – at 2800 rpm! I think most people would classify that as Club Oficers 2 insane rather than merely eccentric! Iʼm glad I missed Minutes of Last Meeting 2 the rotation in which Jimmy found a nail in his blank – and kept turning anyway. The organisers will have to Green-wood Lidded Bowl 3 come up with something special to top that at the next Symposium. Iʼm looking forward to it... Show & Tell 6 Graeme Open Shop with Ken Dubay 8

PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor Page 2 THE CNEW SKEW VOLUME 20 ISSUE 6 Club Oficers and Contact Info for 2007 President, Al Faul 978-534-3683 [email protected] VP, Internal, Reid Gilmore 508-856-5894 [email protected] VP, External, Mary Maguire 603-899-5094 [email protected] Secretary, Tim Elliott 603-778-3834 [email protected] Treasurer, Norma Hogan 508-248-5525 [email protected] Newsletter, Graeme Young 508-485-8271 [email protected] Video Librarian, Al Faul 978-534-3683 [email protected] Book Librarian, Ray Boutotte 978-368-0004 [email protected] Webmaster, Dave Eaton 508-653-6364 [email protected] Photography, Henry Fairlie [email protected]

Minutes of April Meeting The Springield woodworking show will take place again in January 2008 - CNEW is invited to partici- Tim Elliott pate. Visitors/guests: Clay Curry (actually, now a new mem- Will Hunt reports that Woodcraft is again carrying ure- ber) thane oil at about $16 per quart. He and Steve Reznek Norma Hogan gave a treasurerʼs report have been buying from an alternative supplier by mail, but the minimum order is 1 gallon. Will provided info Ending balance: $2046 that will be posted on the CNEW website. Norma is collecting large animal bones - not leg bones We had an abundant woodswap, thanks to Dave Eaton. or horns, but other bones from large animals with interesting shapes. As an example, she showed an elk pelvis We voted to participate again in the “Festival of Crafts” that she is making into a mask. If you know of a good hosted by the Worcester Center for Crafts on Thanks- source, please contact her. giving weekend. Charlie Croteau reported that Project Goodwill contin- The Spirit of Wood show in Bedford, MA, will also ues to help raise money towards wheelchairs for people be coming up again. Last year, we had a disappointing who would otherwise not have them. Last month, sales turnout. We should conirm that enough members will of our work contributed to a Boston-area event that attend before committing to it. raised $8000. Charlie also noted that George of “Turn- ings by George” will demo for us at little or no cost if we unoficially expect each participating CNEW member to donate one item to Project Goodwill at the door. Upcoming Events Open Turning sessions are available prior to most meet- Next month our regular meeting will feature New ings. See the website to conirm that it is “on” for any Toy Time. Bring a new or unusual tool or lathe ac- given month. cessory and explain it to those assembled. Ray Boutotte has the CNEW shirts (denim with em- Ocean State Woodturners is hosting Melvin Fir- broidered CNEW logo). If you ordered one back in the mager on Saturday July 7th, 9am-3pm at the North Fall, please be sure to see Ray and get it. Cost is $25. Kingstown Free Library on Booth St. Thatʼs in Last weekend was the Yankee Woodturning sympo- North Kingstown, RI. Cost is $30, lunch included. sium in Connecticut. Dave Eaton reported that all who If interested, please contact George Nazareth at attended found it very worthwhile. [email protected] or 401 333 6119. Alan Gilburg has invited CNEW members to his wood- lot in Vermont to cut down some trees and collect wood on 6/23. He passed out maps and contact info.

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Begin by cutting a suitable log section along the solid Green-Wood Lidded Bowl lines of Figure 1. The cut separating the lid from the Rick Angus bowl will be made only after the outer shape of the Although the challenges of making a cross-grain green- bowl and lid is established. On the center-cut face of wood bowl and itted lid may seem daunting, with the log section (the left side of Figure 1), mark a point proper control of drying the lid will it both when wet on the centerline just under where the pith line was and and after drying. Preparing the lidded bowl is simply as close to the center of the face as possible; this will be preparing two bowls with complementary rims; if done one center point during turning. Find an opposite center well, these rims it together so as to disguise the seam. point by best guess and mount the piece between cen- Since wet wood shrinks during drying, the irst consid- ters on your lathe. Turn the stock into a cylinder about eration is making the rims from as close to the same the axis of the lathe. Locate a single grain line near place in the log as is possible, so that the distortion the center of your work piece; choose one that can be during drying is as nearly the same in both rims. The traced around the entire circumference of the cylinder; second consideration is to minimize the out-of-plane mark this grain line. Bring the tool rest close to the sur- distortion of the rims during drying. face of the cylinder. Spin the cylinder until a high point of this grain line is nearest the toolrest and mark the The procedure for making a lidded bowl is based on the portion on the toolrest. Spin the cylinder exactly one detailed general procedure for making an open bowl half turn. Measure the distance of the toolrest mark and with the addition of the steps of: the marked grain line. Loosen the tailstock and shift the • making the lid, cylinder enough to shift the marked grain ring one half • itting the lid to the bowl and of the measured distance and retighten the tailstock. • controlling the drying to preserve the it. Turn another cylinder and check the alignment again. This procedure aligns the stock in all three directions. Placement of the Bowl in the Log Section Since trees never grow completely symmetrically, per- I do not want to accept the challenge of incorporating fect symmetry never will be achieved but this proce- the pith of the log in my piece since it is the least stable dure will get you very close. portion of the log during air-drying. I prefer to work with nature and by avoiding the pith and using symme- Remaining Steps for the Lidded Bowl try to my advantage, I can get well-itting lids. Using the open bowl procedure below, follow these I like to prepare a cross-grain bowl with bi-lateral sym- steps to complete the lidded bowl: metry; more discussion of this can be found in the open • shape the bowl and lid, allowing a kerf between the bowl section. two for later separation The horizontal dashed line in Figure 1 represents the • prepare a tenon (spigot) on the bottom of the bowl symmetry plane of the bowl; the log is cut along the and the top of the lid two solid lines – from the middle portion, the bowl and • part the lid from the bowl lid will be made. The vertical dashed line represents the delineation of the lid from the bowl; either portion can • hollow the lid, shaping it with a lip to align the lid be the lid or bowl: it is your choice. with the bowl • hollow the bowl making sure that the rim of the bowl is a good it with the lid – chose an aesthetical- ly pleasing intersection between the lid and bowl • turn a foot on the bowl and a handle on the lid. Alternatively, prepare a mortise or tenon that will accommodate an added handle or inial. The bowl with a well-itting lid is nearly complete. At his point the lid will it in any orientation; it can be Figure 1 rotated after being it into place. As the wood dries, the

PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor Page 4 THE CNEW SKEW VOLUME 20 ISSUE 6 rims will become oval and even distort out of planarity through the center of the rim and (3) about the same if left unrestrained. number of rings on each end of the bowl. Drying cannot be accomplished without shrinkage. The This process begins with choice of the log (or at least oval shape of the dried bowl can be quite pleasant; this choice of the visualization of the orientation of the is our goal. The distortion from planarity however can- blank within the log). For this simple bowl, the three not be tolerated if a good it is to be maintained. During symmetry aspects are controlled with three deliberate drying, the planarity of the rims can be maintained by steps. Firstly, the end grain of the log is viewed and a clamping the bowl and lid to lat surfaces or by placing longitudinal cut is made through the pith such that the them on lat surfaces and applying weight to the top. growth ring thickness is uniform throughout this “half- During the drying, the inside of the bowl and lid must log” segment. This is illustrated in Figure 2 by the be vented to the atmosphere to allow even drying. This vertical cut line (cutting this log along the horizontal is easily accomplished by using a sheet of MDF large line would produce a bowl blank with growth rings of enough to support the rim with a hole in the middle to uneven thickness form side-to-side). vent the interior of the bowl and lid. The second symmetry feature, keeping the pith line centered is simply a matter of choosing to place the Green Wood Open Bowl drive center on the pith line of the blank. The third fea- The steps described below are those that I use for pre- ture is assured by positioning the tail center so the pith paring cross-grain (grain running across the cylindrical axis of the bowl) bowls from logs. I apply these techniques when preparing a inished bowl from wet wood (and allowing it to shrink and distort during drying) or when twice-turning a bowl (irst turning the wet log blank to a rough bowl with overly thick walls, allowing it to dry, shrink and distort and then remounting it and Figure 2 cutting it to inal dimensions). This technique can be applied to bowls with their rims originating either near line is perpendicular to the axis. This step is done most the center of the log (conventional) or the bark (natural easily on a bowl blank that has been cut to a cylinder on edge). the lathe, as the freshly cut grain lines are easy to see. Many styles of bowl can be produced using this tech- Overview of the Turning Process nique. This procedure is a culmination of steps taken The bowl is made in three steps, each requiring a sepa- from the work of our woodturning predecessors – noth- rate mount on the lathe: turn the outside of the bowl ing here is newly invented. I believe that the organiza- between centers; remount the blank in a scroll chuck tion of these steps affords an eficient process wherein and turn the inside and rim; remount the nearly inished no specialized tools are required. The steps are: bowl in a jam chuck (gripping the rim) and turn the foot. • controlling the grain pattern • turning the outside of the bowl Turn the Outside of the Bowl • shaping the rim Cut and orient the blank as discussed above – in this • hollowing the bowl and example, the highly symmetrical conventional bowl. • shaping the foot Bisecting the log to give a blank with uniform grain ring thickness and positioning the drive center on the Controlling the Grain Pattern pith line is critical; the location of the wood contacting It is my desire to control the grain pattern in the inished the tail center is not, as this can be remounted mid-way bowl; in this case the steps required to prepare a bowl through turning for ine adjustment. with a highly symmetrical (bilateral) grain pattern is discussed – one that looks the same side-to-side when Turn a cylinder or the crude outside proile of your the bowl is viewed from the top or bottom, i.e., the bowl. For this example, make the rim the largest diam- growth ring pattern, viewed from the end grain, show eter portion of your bowl. Examine the growth rings on (1) rings of uniform thickness, (2) the pith line running the end grain and choose an early grain ring that can be

PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor Page 5 THE CNEW SKEW VOLUME 20 ISSUE 6 identiied on both endgrain portions of the blank. Move cut a new outside proile. Clamping the tenon too the tool rest near to the blank in this region. Rotate the tightly can compress the wood ibers and this compres- blank so that one such ring is very near the toolrest and sion often is not symmetrical, leading to the blank not mark this location on the toolrest. Rotate the blank one running true. half turn so that the ring of the other side of the bowl is Using a bowl gouge with the appropriate grind angle now near the toolrest. Mark the toolrest as before. The for the depth of your bowl, begin removing wood from difference between these marks (in the direction of the the interior of the bowl to a depth that will allow shap- rotational axis) is approximately the amount by which ing the rim. Cut the rim to the inal shape and then con- the blank needs to be adjusted to get the two identical tinue hollowing the bowl until you are satisied with the grain rings to appear in the same place in the rim. wall thickness and inside proile. Loosen the tailstock. While keeping the drive center in When the interior is completed, you are ready to re- itʼs original position in the blank, move the blank so as mount and turn a foot. Since the rim is now running true to bring the chosen grain ring to the midpoint of the two to the bowl axis, it can be used as a reference surface. marks on the toolrest. The motion of the blank should be along a horizontal line. A cup center is useful here as Turning the Foot of the Bowl Remove the bowl from the scroll chuck and remove the small adjustments can be made without the center point chuck from the lathe. Mount a faceplate with a medium reorienting the blank to the original position. density iberboard (MDF) face at least slightly greater One additional orientation step may be taken. Rotate the than the rim diameter of your current project. Cut a blank a quarter turn and ind a late grain ring near the mortise with an ID equal to the OD for the bowl rim. A foot that can be clearly identiied on both sides of the large inside/outside caliper is useful for transferring the blank. Bring the toolrest close to it and mark as before. dimension to the jam chuck. A homemade sliding pin Rotate the blank a half turn and mark again. Adjust the gauge similar to a mortise-marking gauge works well tail center position as before taking care to move the too. Lacking either of these, you can cut a mortise a bit blank along a horizontal line. Note that the two reposi- too small and incrementally enlarge it until you have a tioning steps are perpendicular to each other. tight it. Jam the rim of the bowl into the mortise; the Turn the inal outside proile and create a tenon at the friction provided by the tight it is adequate to drive tailstock end. Be certain that the length of the tenon is the rotation of the bowl. For safety, you can wrap saran slightly less than the depth of the chuck jaws; this as- wrap (about 2-4˝ wide, sold as “lat twine” by moving sures that the square shoulder can it tightly against the companies and purveyors of ine woodworking tools) face of the jaws. The faces of the chuck jaws are the around the rim and jam chuck to prevent the bowl from reference surface on the lathe (running perpendicular lying out of the mortise. The tenon that served you to the lathe axis) and the shoulder on your developing well during the rim shaping and hollowing is no longer bowl is the reference that you just cut perpendicular to of value and can be converted into a foot. This mount the axis. Mounting the reference surfaces against each allows clear access without using a tailstock. other is your method of assuring coaxial remounting. Comments on the article of your results? Let me know Shaping the Rim and Hollowing the Bowl how it worked. Mount the tenon in the scroll chuck jaws. Rotate the [email protected] blank by hand and look for run-out; feel the outside 860 564 3660 edge as you hand rotate and feel for run-out. Feeling is generally more accurate than looking, as it is not inlu- enced by color variations. Leaving the bowl in the car on a If the amount of run-out is tolerable to you, cut the in- hot day is not a side of the bowl and shape the rim. If not, you can try good alternative to remounting the blank on the reference surface, looking clamping it to a lat for bits of dust and such that caused you to deviate from surface! running true. If you are not satisied with the remount, Page 6 THE CNEW SKEW VOLUME 20 ISSUE 6

Show and Tell Photographs by Henry Fairlie Top row, L to R: Trembleurs and string steady (to stop them from trembling) by Dave Hopkins. George of “Turnings by George” did the triangular box. Graeme Young made the eccentric hollow form – and crushed the lip trying to turn the tenon off. Centre: Salt & pepper shakers in spalted maple by Joe Harbey. Below: Hal Mahon has been making square things recently. Paul Charbon- neau found some grapefruit wood to turn and texture. And Mike Green made a very nice hollow form from a cherry burl and a couple of bottles of CA.

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From the top: This form in very hard blackjack oak is Paul Charbonneauʼs current “worst thing I ever T2B: Ray Boutotte acquired these segmented vases turned”. Will Hunt bleached this maple burl bowl. from his wifeʼs grandmother. The off-axis bowl with Mike Stone did the segmented vase under the tutelage feet is another “Turnings by George”. The last piece of John McAtee. is rectangular not square but itʼs still by Hal Mahon.

A 25 Sagamore Road Worcester, MA 01605

Phone: 508-753-8183 C Fax: 508-797-5626 E R N E T T Email: [email protected] R P AL HA NE C W ENGLAND

Central New England Woodturners A Chapter of the American Association of Woodturners

On the web: www.cnew.org

A Day With Ken Dubay by gluing two blocks together, shaping the outside, Dave Eaton breaking them apart and hollowing them. Symmetry is important as well as some key thicknesses. Once com- On May 26th, about 15 members of CNEW, ART and pleted he added some nice surface embellishments. CCW went to the home and shop of Ken Dubay in Co- lumbia, CT for a day of turning, demos and fun. Then – alas we had clean-up time. Around 4pm we all chipped in to make easy work of sweeping up and re- We started at 9 am with two CNEW members jumping turning Kenʼs shop to itʼs original condition. Most peo- onto Kenʼs two Oneway lathes and turning out some ple left shortly thereafter with the stragglers staying to natural bark edge bowls. Everyone got a chance to turn jaw with Ken, who invited us all to come back soon. and there was plenty of mentoring and advice loating about. As always, Ken was extremely generous and of- Thanks again to Ken and Mary for opening up their fered tools as needed and supplied all the wood for the home and shop to us and for being such excellent hosts. day. We even had a selection of wood and burls for a Their hearts, I think, are probably made of “Gold.” wood swap including a few pieces of wonderfully ig- ured Ambrosia Maple. At mid-day we ate a scrumptious lunch served up by Kenʼs wonderful wife Mary. Several banquet tables were ready for us to enjoy the delicious meal of Ameri- can Chop Suey, salad, bread, veggies, drinks, crackers and cheeses. Itʼs incredible how Mary makes this work for so many people with absolute perfection. After lunch we again returned to turning. Al Czellecz gave an excellent demo on how to create a hollow vase

Volume 20 Issue 5 May 2007 Editorial Presidentʼs Message One weekend at the end of April, I made my way down Are you having fun? I would like to thank Rick Angus to the Brookield Craft Center in western Connecticut for his demo last month on his oval bowl, it was very for a class in surface decoration with Binh Pho with fasinating to see it all come together as Rick made it four other students. Everyone had brought some turned look soooo easy but with a few things to watch for. pieces to practice on, with the result that the only time I Remember the Yankee Symposium is only a few weeks saw one of Brookieldʼs big Oneways in use it was as a away as I write this, it is only a short drive away to see sander. Binh taught us the two decorative techniques he some talent from all corners of the globe and hopefully uses most, airbrushing and piercing. to learn something and add to your turning repertoire. My primary interest was in airbrushing as I have an air- Many thanks go to all who donated to the Freedom brush but have never learned to use it in anything other project. This month we will have open turning before than “house painting” mode. Binh irst went through the meeting at 5:30, hopefully you will come and learn a series of exercises to get everyone familiar with the that little trick that has been stumping you or maybe airbrush – I donʼt think anyone else in the group had help somebody solve a problem. The wood working ever used one. For the exercises we used thin plywood, teacher for the Worcester Craft Center made it a point which was considerably easier than painting onto a to come and thank the club for the donation which will curved surface. The paints were transparent airbrush be used in the wood shop. The teacher turned out to be paints by Golden. Binh did not pre-mix colours, instead our own Andy Motter who we don’t often get to see using the paints straight from the bottle and creating dif- because of his busy schedule, but he also will be at the ferent shades by blending colours directly on the work. symposium. See you at the meeting. Have Fun This was considerably easier and faster than using dyes as I had been doing. Even the liquid Transtint dyes I use AL have to be diluted for use, which can be wasteful given the very small quantities of material the airbrush uses. Contents After a bit of practice we all moved on to painting a kimono. This introduced us to masking, which is one of Presidentʼs Message 1 the most important control techniques in airbrushing. Editorial 1 With a paintbrush, you use the brush to put paint only where you want it; with an airbrush, you use masks to Club Oficers 2 prevent the airbrush from putting paint where you donʼt want it. The masking material is a plastic ilm called Minutes of Last Meeting 2 frisket, sticky on one side. After transferring a pattern A Weekend with Ellsworth 3 to either the wood or the frisket, the frisket is stuck down to the wood. Then you cut round all the pattern Vacuum Holding, part 2 4 lines with a craft knife and start removing the pieces gradually, painting the exposed areas. Always start with Wood Cutting Invitation 5 the areas that are to be darkest in colour because over- Show & Tell 6 spray from later, lighter colours wonʼt show. (ctd.)

PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor Page 2 THE CNEW SKEW VOLUME 20 ISSUE 5 Club Oficers and Contact Info for 2007 President, Al Faul 978-534-3683 [email protected] VP, Internal, Reid Gilmore 508-856-5894 [email protected] VP, External, Mary Maguire 603-899-5094 [email protected] Secretary, Tim Elliott 603-778-3834 [email protected] Treasurer, Norma Hogan 508-248-5525 [email protected] Newsletter, Graeme Young 508-485-8271 [email protected] Video Librarian, Al Faul 978-534-3683 [email protected] Book Librarian, Ray Boutotte 978-368-0004 [email protected] Webmaster, Dave Eaton 508-653-6364 [email protected] Photography, Henry Fairlie [email protected]

Editorial, ctd. Minutes of May Meeting After everyone had inished a kimono we compared the Tim Elliott effects of different colour schemes and of applying the pattern to the frisket or the wood. Applying the pattern Visitors/guests: none directly to the wood helped to deine the painting by Norma Hogan gave a treasurerʼs report leaving the black outlines in place but it meant you had Starting balance: $1514.96 to be extra careful about cutting exactly on the lines Ending balance: $1941.96 and, as I found out later, it was possible to smudge the This monthʼs Open Turning session drew only two pattern. More sanding – sigh. members. We will have another before the June meeting Later we moved on to piercing, using a very high speed at 5:30 PM. (about 400,000 rpm) air-driven rotary tool. Luckily the The Yankee Woodturning symposium is coming up weather was good enough to work outside – with two soon (1st weekend in June). There is currently room big air compressors running, the shop got intensely for additional reservations, but they may ill and have noisy at times. The big bowl I had taken with me was to start turning people away. Volunteers are still needed too thick to pierce at ¹⁄8˝ but I did have a smaller one to for the actual event. practice on. Binh showed us how to deine a butterly using either negative or positive space, removing ei- AAW is seeking volunteers for the national symposium. ther most of the wood inside the pattern or most of the If youʼre planning to attend, please bring a toy to donate wood around it. Because of the high speed, the burrs cut to a community charity. Youth ages 10-17 will get free easily and showed no tendency to follow the grain, as admission and be entered into a drawing for one of 25 slower cutters sometimes do. lathe/tool packages. Binh is a very good teacher. After demonstrating a The CNEW website is looking good and appears to be technique, he mostly stayed out of the way, allowing ranked well against sites of other chapters. There is a the students to get on and practice without interference. password protected members-only area, call one of the Only when someone had a problem or a question would club oficers if you canʼt remember the ID/password. he step in and explain how to solve it. On Sunday af- Dave Eaton is helping to organize a ield trip to Ken ternoon as the class was winding down, Binh showed Dubayʼs shop on May 26. Contact him if interested. slides of some of his work and explained more about Reid Gilmore summarized future meeting programs: how they were done and what some of the design ele- ments represented. The dragonlies certainly took on June Dave Eaton on hook tools and hollow forms more signiicance when Binh explained that they were July New tool month (bring something to show) helicopters – the “dragonly airplanes” of his youth in Aug Annual picnic wartime Vietnam.

PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor Page 3 THE CNEW SKEW VOLUME 20 ISSUE 5 didactic on the Ellsworth bowl gouge and an overview A Weekend With David Ellsworth of chucking. His strong preference is the faceplate as it Joe McGill provides the most secure method of holding the wood, This weekend was a long time coming. I originally tried places the wood closest to the motor thus minimizing to enroll in a class with noted turner David Ellsworth vibration, and allows for the most usable material. for the fall of 2006 but, when I contacted him in May David also spent some time speaking about basic design of that year, I found out that his next available opening and then it was off to the woodpile for a demonstration was April 2007. His present waiting list is about nine of preparing wood with the chain saw. months, but it is worth the wait! The initial turning projects used poplar so wet that it Nestled in the lower Lehigh Valley region of was necessary to stand back as David turned a small Pennsylvania lies Quakertown. Davidʼs house and piece while demonstrating the ive cuts we would use studio are about nine miles east of the Northeast for almost all of the work, all done with the Ellsworth Extension of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, a little over an Bowl Gouge. He also showed us how he measures hour from both Philadelphia and New York. Situated on depths and accounts for the screws in the faceplate twenty-acres are his home, studio, his wifeʼs studio, and while shaping the bottom of the vessel. At the grinder other buildings necessary for maintaining the property he offered a brief tutorial on sharpening and the utility and a rural lifestyle. Davidʼs house is a museum, of various jigs. Initially he sharpened tools for some full of original turnings, photographs, paintings, and of us and then watched as students tried it on their sculptures of various materials. To see some of his own. Then it was our turn at the lathes. David made holdings I recommend the AAW Masters Series video his way around the room offering advice and giving of David in which he introduces the viewer to many pointers. Usually he demonstrated a hand, body, or of the items in his collection. Yet, even within the gouge position for the student but did not make the splendor of the setting and home, David offers a warm cut, allowing the student to immediately apply the and inviting atmosphere. The visitor is greeted by Blue, technique. He was patient, attentive, and encouraging. Davidʼs aging Labrador Retriever, who announces your He seemed to quickly pick up on the personalities of arrival to all. Entering the house inds David preparing each of us as turners as evidenced when, while faced breakfast for the students. This pattern is repeated each with the problem of removing a gouge mark from the morning of the three-day session as he also prepares inside of a piece less then a eighth of an inch thick, he lunch for all three days and dinner for the irst two days. said to me, “You can go for it or not. If you go for it you Meals feature good food, lots of hot sauce, and limitless will only get one chance.” When I said I would go for fascinating stories by David of other turners, students, it he replied, “That is what it is all about. Here is how and his army days. He continually uses these moments you do it.” When I blew out the bottom of the vessel as teaching opportunities as he sketches on napkins and we both laughed. paper plates the proper iling angle of chain saw teeth to Day two began with an overview of hollowing perform adequate cross and rip cuts. He then points the techniques at the blackboard and then to the grinder parallel between this angle and that of the bowl gouge. where he demonstrated sharpening deep hollowing However, while good stories and food are great and tools. When I was faced with the problem of how relaxing fun, turning is the reason for being there and to resolve the shoulder of my hollow form a quick mealtime is limited to one hour. drawing at the blackboard was all I needed from him Davidʼs turning studio is a two story A frame a short to resolve the issue. When I was timid in approaching distance from the house. The business part of the studio the inside bottom of the form he again demonstrated is on the irst loor where four Poolewood lathes and depth measuring. As with the shoulder issue, a quick one Woodfast lathe reside. I worked on a Poolewood comment and suggestion helped to resolve the design and found it a wonderful machine. The computer speed into a pleasing union of base and vessel. control regulates speeds from .1 RPM to a top speed Day three began with an overview of the vacuum well beyond my nerve, as I never turned it up beyond chuck with suggestions and commentary about various 1500 RPM. Day one began at the blackboard with a vacuum chucking equipment and methods. Then it

PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor Page 4 THE CNEW SKEW VOLUME 20 ISSUE 5 Weekend with Ellsworth (ctd.) was back to the lathes with either hickory or birch for A Vacuum System for Holding the Sunday project. As with day two, a quick word or Work on the Lathe (Part 2) comment was all that was usually needed to resolve an © Hal Mahon issue or problem. As three of the other turners blew out the sides of their hollow forms the studio took A common unit to describe the strength of vacuum on a much more relaxed attitude as we had all visited is inches of mercury. At sea level a perfect vacuum momentary failure. As the end of the day approached can support a column of mercury 30 inches high, David stated that he was tired of watching others have which corresponds to 14.7 pounds per square inch. This is atmospheric pressure at sea level. The force all of the fun and positioned himself at a lathe. In a 2 matter of a few minutes he formed the outside of a on a bowl with an area of 50 in (about 8˝ diameter) vessel. He then mounted it on a faceplate, reined the under a vacuum of 25 inches of mercury (abbreviated outside, and hollowed out the inside. He removed the 25˝ Hg) would be 613 pounds (50 x 14.7 x 25/30 = faceplate, threaded on a jam chuck, and inished off the 612.5). This is a considerable force and helps explain object. By far, it took longer to mount and unmount the the effectiveness of the vacuum chuck. My graph at the faceplate then it did to perform all of the turning. The bottom of the page shows how force varies with inches bowl was almost identical to the one an experienced of vacuum and chuck diameter. For example at 20 student took all afternoon to turn the day before. inches vacuum and with an 8˝ diameter chuck the graph shows that the force holding the bowl to the chuck is The last part of the workshop was a visit upstairs. 500 pounds, or 275 pounds force for a 6˝ diameter There, on glass shelves and stands, was a thirty year chuck. With 15 inches vacuum a 6˝ diameter chuck retrospective of his work, from objects turned in the would provide the holding force of a good size person 1970ʼs to some recently turned. Quite the highlight to a standing on your work pushing with their weight down great three days. against the chuck. As shown in this graph the larger the diameter of the chuck the greater is the holding force for a given vacuum. However without care too much force could be applied to a bowl. Damage could result if the wall of the bowl is too thin or the vacuum applied is too great. The valve shown in the Vacuum System Schematic on the next page can be adjusted to limit the vacuum and hence the force applied to an acceptable level yet suficient to provide adequate holding force. This refrigerator pump shown on page 5 was free, runs quietly and pulled a vacuum of 28 inches of mercury on my lathe, which is close to the maximum possible of 30 inches.

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This was higher than obtained from my Gast vacuum force applied. I keep an eye on the gauge while turning pump. (The vacuum measured is also highly dependent to assure that the gasket remains tight. A quick release on the quality of the seal to the bowl on the lathe.) I valve saves time in quickly reducing the vacuum to remove the work held in the chuck. Initially when I irst set up my vacuum system I included a large, 10-gallon size air reservoir. However in tests with and without the reservoir I could detect absolutely no advantage of the reservoir with either vacuum pump. I tried the reservoir with different bowls with different qualities of seals. An air reservoir would be an extra expense you do not need. To be continued. Addendum to Minutes (Free Wood!) returned this pump to recycling after testing because it was bulkier than my other options. Electrical As discussed at the last meeting; Alan Gilburg is connections are shown in the left side of the Schematic, offering members an opportunity to harvest any wood including the ground wire connected to the metal they wish from his land per below (Thanks Alan!) case of the vacuum pump. There is an on/off switch. Iʼd like to schedule Saturday, June 23, to invite CNEW Some induction motors will have one or two starting members to my land in Vermont to cut and take out capacitors. The refrigeration unit in igure 5 did not wood. I have 400 acres of woods, though most of it is have an external starting capacitor. The manifold is on not very accessible. the right side of the Schematic. There is a trap to capture I know there is plenty of maple, cherry, beech, and dust before it enters the mechanical part of the pump. oak on the land. I suggest we gather at 10:30 AM and The vacuum line leads from the pump through the dust start determining the trees we want to cut that are close trap to the valve. This control valve is for adjusting the enough to the road so we wonʼt break our backs lugging level of vacuum applied to the chuck. The gauge is it out. located where I can conveniently watch it while I am turning. The gauge gives a measure of the strength of Bring trucks, saws, lunches and water. There is a the vacuum, and with reference to the graph above, the general store in Readsboro on Rte 100 about 5 miles south of my land where people can get supplies.

PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor Page 6 THE CNEW SKEW VOLUME 20 ISSUE 5 Left: Bill LeClerc: Inside-out walnut vase. Dave Eaton: Large ash vase (you canʼt see the join). Mike “Red” Green: 15˝ high replica gouge made of pine, with accurate hollow grind, ground on an 8 ft. diameter “grinding wheel”. Below: Dave Hopkins: Red oak natural-edge bowl.

Show and Tell Photographs by Henry Fairlie

Above: Lamination of multiple species by Dom Leroux. Below: Mike Stone made the lidded box. The birdhouse ornaments are by Dick Rinkaus. Frank White made the hollow form from (unrecorded) burl.

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Left: Dave Hopkins: plywood lidded box with inlayed band Steve Reznek: Mahogany bowl with key grindings Frank White: Lidded boxes with inials Steve Reznek: Spalted apple bowl

Above: Dave Eaton: Cherry dish Dom Leroux: Square natural-edge birch bowl Dave Hopkins: Natural-edge ambrosia maple bowl

A 25 Sagamore Road Worcester, MA 01605

Phone: 508-753-8183 C Fax: 508-797-5626 E R N E T T Email: [email protected] R P AL HA NE C W ENGLAND

Central New England Woodturners A Chapter of the American Association of Woodturners

On the web: www.cnew.org

To join or renew your membership, print this form and either bring it to the next meeting with cash or check for $20 made payable to CNEW, or mail the form along with a check to:

Treasurer Central New England Woodturners c/o Worcester Center For Crafts 25 Sagamore Road Worcester, MA 01650

Volume 20 Issue 4 April 2007 Editorial Presidentʼs Message Are we having fun? I would like to thank Norm Mancuso for his wonderful demo on boxes as he made it look so easy to make them. You can also see Norm at the Yankee Symposium on the irst weekend in June at Wesleyan College in southern Conn. There are about 17 demonstrators from all over the world to show you how to do some amazing things with wood. Finally, itʼs Springtime in New England! One morning I looked at the program and noticed that there were six thereʼs nothing but a single little dwarf iris, the next people from CNEW on the program that were giving – daffodils everywhere! Now that I can get down to the demonstrations, just think of the talent that we have basement without dressing for an Arctic expedition, itʼs amongst us hopefully to call upon for our monthly time to get back to turning again. And a good thing too, demos. Last month we had a huge amount of wood for because I acquired rather a lot of wood at the last wood the wood swap, try to remember to call Gene Spadi to swap and there was quite enough waiting to be turned coordinate for the wood swap so we do not have a over down there already. abundance. I would like to thank all who donated to Project Goodwill with the many items, and also to the This weekend, however, weʼre off to the Brookield people who brought in items for show and tell. This Craft Center in Connecticut for a weekend with Binh month we will have Rick Angus as our demonstrator, Pho. You can expect a full report in next monthʼs news- we also will have open turning once again in May. See letter and if anyone is taking a class or course – remem- You There, Keep Turning and Have Fun. ber the poor newsletter editor and write it up for me! Of course, as soon as we get back from Connecticut AL the irst item on the agenda is inishing the transforma- tion of the back bedroom into a weaving studio for my Contents wife Hazel. We recently bought a new loom which is Presidentʼs Message 1 big enough to do serious work on but small enough to it in a small room, unlike “the big loom” which has Editorial 1 been gathering dust in the basement for years because there is no other space in the house big enough for it. Club Oficers 2 I wouldnʼt be bothered by bits of yarn getting all over Upcoming Events 2 my works in progress but Hazel objects to getting wood dust and shavings all over hers. Maybe once we Minutes of Last Meeting 2 get the new loom set up and plugged in – yes, even a loom designed for hand weaving has its own on-board Turning an Endgrain Box 3 computer these days – we can take the big one apart Vacuum System, part 1 5 and free up more space in the basement. Which Iʼll promptly ill with more works in progress, blanks and Show & Tell 7 assorted lumps of wood...

PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor Page 2 THE CNEW SKEW VOLUME 20 ISSUE 4 Club Oficers and Contact Info for 2007 President, Al Faul [email protected] VP, Internal, Reid Gilmore [email protected] VP, External, Mary Maguire [email protected] Secretary, Tim Elliott [email protected] Treasurer, Norma Hogan [email protected] Newsletter, Graeme Young [email protected] Video Librarian, Al Faul [email protected] Book Librarian, Ray Boutotte [email protected] Webmaster, Dave Eaton [email protected] Photography, Henry Fairlie [email protected]

Minutes of April Meeting Upcoming Events Tim Elliott Demo for CNEW May 3rd meeting will be Rick An- Visitors: Bill LeClerk, Dick and Jane Gardner. gus showing how to turn an oval bowl. Charlie Croteau brought in more wood for “Project The Yankee Woodturning Symposium to be Goodwill” and reported that our donations have so far held June 1-3 at Wesleyan College in Middletown, CT, amounted to 112 donated wheelchairs. The next auction is coming up fast and plans are being inalized. As pre- is in May. viously announced we have lined up ten featured dem- Joe Harbey has arranged for the Open Turning session onstrators with national and international reputations before our regularly-scheduled meeting to resume. as well as some very good local talent. The featured Please check the website before each meeting to demonstrators include Jimmy Clewes from England, conirm if it is on in any given month. Graeme Priddle from New Zealand, Jean-Francois Reid Gilmore has the following demos scheduled Escoulen from France, and from the U.S., Johannes April: Norm Mancuso on endgrain boxes Michelsen, Mark St. Leger, Michael Hosaluk, Mark May: Rick Angus on oval bowls Sirri, Angelo Iafrate, Beth Ireland, and Bob Rosand. Reid is still looking for demonstrators for June and July Register early as the fee increases from $135 to $150 - contact him if you are interested. on May 1st and will be $165 at the door. For details Gene Spadi continues to collect pens for the Freedom see our website www.yankeewoodturningsymposium. Pen project, and will send in another batch when he org; email [email protected] or call 401-829- has collected a reasonable number. Gene thanked Dave 8293. Hope to see many of you there! Eaton for providing a large amount of wood for this Coming of Age: Emerging and Established Wood monthʼs wood swap. Artists, at the Woodturning Center in Philadelphia Frank White gave a quick summary of the upcoming until May 19th. Exhibition marking the Centerʼs 21st Yankee Woodturning symposium to be held this June. year promoting and serving the wood art community. Registration fees escalate with time, so register early More details at www.woodturningcenter.org or 215- for the best price. Volunteers are still needed. Follow 923-8000. the link on the CNEW website for more info. Norma Hogan gave a treasurerʼs report. And if youʼre in Philadephia anyway, drop in at Starting balance: $1372 the Wexler Gallery for “Man Made: In the Natural Ending balance: $1514 World”, an exhibition of paintings and works on pa- Dave Eaton says our website has been revamped and per by Bosnian artist Tanja Softic juxtaposed withs- is now database driven, which should simplify future culptural and turned wood objects by Ron Fleming, updates and improvements. He is also selling hook George Peterson, Thierry Martenon, Louise Hib- st tools at $35 each. bert and Michael Shuler. Till May 31 .

PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor Page 3 THE CNEW SKEW VOLUME 20 ISSUE 4 Turning an End-grain Box hollowing, as if you were turning a small bowl. Other possibilities include a hook tool or the Termite-style Norm Mancuso ring tool. Back-hollowing is a useful technique to learn Start with a piece of relatively straight-grained and once learned is probably the fastest way to hollow a hardwood about 12-3˝ on a side and 4-6˝ long. Using a box or any other end-grain piece. Use a round or square roughing gouge, reduce the piece to a spindle between scraper to inish inside the top. Properly sharpened and centers. With a skew chisel, turn a chuck footing on each presented to the piece, the scraper will take tissue-thin end, allowing slightly more wood than is necessary, say shavings (not dust) from the end-grain. about 3⁄8˝ as shown in Figure 1. While the top is still in the chuck, shape the outside Place the blank in a chuck and take a facing cut (at about as desired. You will inish this later but do as much as 1000 rpm) on the free end using either a small skew or possible while the top is strongly held in the chuck, 2˝ spindle gouge. You may ind that the spindle gouge rather than held in the less secure jam chuck later. is easier to control. As you cut in “from air”, make Make the opening as square as possible for about 3⁄8˝. certain that the bevel of the tool is perpendicular to the Use a side-relieved square scraper for this operation. long axis of the blank. Reverse the blank and do the When making this cut, the tool rest should be placed same from the other end, so that both ends are square above the center line. A skew cannot be used for this to the blank. operation. Use an inside caliper to make certain that the Decide which end you want to be the top of the box and recess is the same diameter from the innermost position draw a line around the blank at a position about 25 to to the outside edge. You will need this in order to jam- 40% of the blankʼs length from the chosen end. Part the it the top on the bottom for inishing up the top. Sand blank into two pieces, marking the end of the top which and inish the interior of the top, especially the mating is to mate with the end of the bottom. Mount the top end surfaces, as desired. French polish is a good alternative, of the top in the chuck with the squared end in the jaws especially if you want to inish the box in one operation. and face the exposed end as above. With a skew, make Remove the top of the box from the chuck. a small vee-cut in the center to serve as a center spot for Place the bottom piece in the chuck. Take approximate the hollowing operation. measurements in order to make a jam chuck to hold With a 3⁄8˝ center drill, drill a pilot hole to an appropriate the top for inal inishing. See Figures 3 and 4 for a depth in the top of the box. As a starter, make the hole guide to the operations required for the jam-itting of less than about 4 of the length of the top piece. Place the the top to the bottom. Turn a 3⁄8˝ bevel on the bottom rest across the front of the piece at a height which will piece as shown in Fig. 3. With the blank spinning at permit the center of the selected spindle gouge to be at around 1000 rpm, gently hold the opening of the top center height when placed on the rest. You will want to against the bevel. If the top does not it over the bevel, think about the next steps before you actually try them. re-cut the bevel lat (Fig. 4) and then cut a new bevel See Figures 2-4 for some thoughts about the mating as shown and retry the itting of the top to the bottom. diameters of the openings. These instructions are for Once the burnish mark has been obtained, latten the an over-itting lid and therefore some considerations up bevel until you have obtained a jam-it of the top onto front relative to the mating surfaces are in order. the bottom. With a couple of healthy taps, drive the top and bottom together. Once completed, inish the top The hollowing the top (or bottom) can be done in a with appropriate cuts to obtain the proile desired. Sand number of ways. My choice is to back-hollow with and inish the outside of the top. With a few gentle taps, a gouge followed by cleanup with a scraper. Another remove the top from the bottom. method is to use a Forstner bit of the appropriate size to drill the center hole. Be advised, however, that drilling Now proceed to make the two pieces it together end-grain in hardwood is neither fast nor fun. (If you smoothly by relieving the excess wood between the choose to use this approach, make sure that the speed two parts in SMALL increments until the top just of the blank is less than about 500 rpm with a HSS barely slides over the bottom. You are aiming to have a drill and about 250 rpm with a carbon steel bit.) It very slight suction it so that when the top is pulled off, is also possible to use a spindle gouge without back a very slight vacuum is felt.

PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor Page 4 THE CNEW SKEW VOLUME 20 ISSUE 4 Now hollow the opening of the bottom to the depth use this to make a jam chuck to hold the bottom. desired. Donʼt do this step until after the top/bottom it This will be done as previously described for the top. has been accomplished. If this sequence is not followed, Drive the bottom onto the jam chuck so that it is held it is relatively easy to make the bottom opening too tightly enough to enable completing the bottom piece. large and you will end up with two pencil pots, one for When shaping has been completed, sand and inish the very short pencils and one for stubs! Sand and inish the bottom and tap gently to remove it from the jam chuck. inside of the bottom. More detailed instructions, including photographs, are available in Richard Raffanʼs books on woodturning. With a narrow parting tool, cut off the bottom leaving Good Luck. about 2˝ of the original blank in the chuck. You will

Back-hollowing with a spindle gouge

PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor Page 5 THE CNEW SKEW VOLUME 20 ISSUE 4 A Vacuum System for Holding releases the bowl from the vacuum chuck. Mounting and unmounting the bowl can be done quickly and Work on the Lathe conveniently so your vacuum chuck system should be © Hal Mahon designed with eficacy and convenience in mind as well Vacuum chucking has many advantages for holding as economy. work on the lathe. Neither mortise nor tenon is required A vacuum chucking system has four components: and there are no screws to leave marks on your 1. Vacuum pump work. Any turner on most lathes may use the system 2. Control manifold connecting pump to the lathe described here. The only restriction is that your work is spindle adapter not so porous or has so many worm holes as to preclude 3. Spindle adapter allowing lathe to spin while the forming a vacuum, and even then there are tricks that manifold connection remains stationary may enable you to overcome some of these dificulties. 4. The vacuum chuck itself Of course the surface of your work must be suficiently smooth to allow a good seal to the vacuum chuck. The irst part of this series is about the vacuum pump, later part deal with the rest of the system. Vacuum chucking is for any wood turner who wants to improve the quality of their work by improving access Vacuum Pumps: where can you ind a pump? to the inside and outside of their turning. It is frequently Very good pumps are made by Gast and Rietschle used near the end of a project in which the work has Thomas and are included in high end systems. Check been held with a conventional 4-jaw chuck or faceplate eBay for vacuum pumps (and Google for additional and the next step is to reverse your work for access to information and addresses not included in this article). its bottom to remove the mortise or tenon, or blemishes Clinton Electric Motor Service (978-365-7652) had 4 from screws. The vacuum chuck is a delightful tool for pumps ranging in price from $85 to$350. You would this part of your work. not be unhappy with the service and guarantee offered by CEMS. (In addition CEMS can replace worn lathe Mickey Goodman has written about vacuum chucking. bearings and rewind lathe motors. It is also a source for See his extensive and helpful article at [http://cnew.org/ DC motors and helpful information to convert your belt tips_techniques/vacuum_chucking.htm]. Google can driven lathe or drill press to variable speed.) bring up more information. Our purpose here is to provide practical information aimed at turners who Sources of used vacuum pumps include dairies, want to make some part, or all, of a vacuum chucking dentists, hospitals, industry, veneer presses, boat system, including making your own vacuum pump. building, type setting, and in HVAC control systems. Off the shelf commercial systems may be purchased Vacuum pumps may be hiding in barns, and salvage at 4-igure prices. The information here enables you to areas of medical and industrial facilities. Low priced make a ine system that may exceed the performance of pumps or even freebies may be lurking close by as the most expensive systems because it can be tailored was the Gast vacuum pump that I acquired a few years to your needs and to your lathe. Depending on your before I started wood turning. choices you may build a ine system at a cost two orders Of course vacuum is available at the intake opening of of magnitude less than that of commercial systems. a regular air Holding a bowl will be explained in more detail later. compressor. Basically a gasket makes an airtight seal between the The air bowlʼs bottom (or side) and the vacuum chuck to allow intakes of work inside the bowl. An airtight seal between the a smaller inside of the bowl and the chuck allows you to work on air pump (a the outside and bottom of the bowl. By evacuating air a Gast air inside this seal the greater atmospheric pressure outside compressor) forces the bowl against the chuck. This force can be is shown considerable and can resist signiicant force from a here. To gouge or sanding. Admitting air into the sealed space c o n n e c t

PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor Page 6 THE CNEW SKEW VOLUME 20 ISSUE 4 such a pump to your vacuum system a ixture from e.g. about the cost of operation. maple with a pipe itting would need to be conigured for Although I already have a good Gast vacuum pump the opening and epoxied in place. If a vacuum reservoir, and do not need another, my purpose here is to show such as a ten gallon size portable air tank, is included how to make a ine, reliable vacuum pump that can be the pump can operate intermittently. For intermittent essentially free except for the cost of a few ittings. A operation a constant vacuum regulator should be pump you can make will have multiple uses such as provided [see http://www.joewoodworker.com/ pumping automotive tires, vacuum veneering and for veneering/welcome.htm]. This site is a source of such a vacuum hold down table for routing and sanding, in a regulator and also a source for most of the parts addition to use with your lathe. The several recycling discussed in this article if they cannot be obtained centers I visit have refrigerators, freezers, dehumidiiers locally. and air conditioners that have been disposed of, usually Some turners have suggested using the handy Shop Vac because they have lost their refrigerant. that most of us have for cleaning up. The availability is When removing the refrigeration pump a pair of large an advantage but even with a clean ilter a good shop diagonal cutters may be used to cut and crimp the pipes. vacuum can only pull a vacuum of up to 6 inches of Or use a tubing cutter and put tape over the ends to keep mercury (see below for deinition), signiicantly less out dirt. Do not use a hacksaw to avoid metal particles than the pumps discussed below. Some vacuums use air getting into the pump. Leave 8 to 18 inches of pipe through the motor for cooling. The low airlow when connected to the pump, longer is better. The pipe may used for vacuum chucking endangers overheating the be cut to a convenient length later with tubing cutters. motor. Finally, a major reason for my disfavor is that Be careful bending pipe to avoid kinking and avoid they tend to be quite noisy. breakage at welded joints. Use care when removing A venturi type vacuum source is shown here together the pump as it may be illed with oil. In operation with a collection of ittings the purpose of which will the oil may mist from the output of the pump and a longer length of tubing coiled vertically will lead it to drain back into the pump. A length of spring with an ID matching the OD of the pipe is useful for bending without kinking. One woodturner has reported more than ten years of trouble free operation with a pump from an apartment size, below counter refrigerator.

be explained later. The venturi produces a vacuum from the side port by forcing 4 to 6 cubic feet per minute of compressed air through from the larger end. A silencer should be attached to the output. This can make a reliable and simple vacuum pump that will be noisy in operation and may be expensive to operate continuously, depending on the air compressor. Grizzly (800-523-4777) sells complete venturi systems for which they recommend a 2 to 4 hp compressor delivering air at 85 psi. My preference is for a quieter system and one with which I would have less concern Page 7 THE CNEW SKEW VOLUME 20 ISSUE 4

Show and Tell Photographs by Henry Fairlie

Clockwise from top left: a bevy of boxes by Norm Mancuso; bowl in black ash burl by Frank White; ash bowl with piercing by Mickey Goodman; a small bowl by Mary Maguire; cherry burl hat bowl by Charlie Croteau; two goblets with captive rings by Al Faul; covered vase by Mike Stone; and a cherry bowl by Joe Harbey.

A 25 Sagamore Road Worcester, MA 01605

Phone: 508-753-8183 C Fax: 508-797-5626 E R N E T T Email: [email protected] R P AL HA NE C W ENGLAND

Central New England Woodturners A Chapter of the American Association of Woodturners

On the web: www.cnew.org

Left to right: redwood burl vase by Frank White; pepper mills by Alan Gilsburg; table leg (one of four!) by Reid Gilmore.

Volume 20 Issue 3 March 2007 Guest Editorial Presidentʼs Message Steve Reznek Hello members, How many times have you lost a great piece of wood Are you having fun, I would like to thank Reid for because it split as it dried? Or how many times have the wonderful demo last month. I thought it was very you made a segmented bowl and had the joint move? informative as I had seen Cindyʼs demo at Totally This last is bad enough when you can only feel the lack Turning, but when Reid showed us it made more of alignment. It is disastrous when the joint actually sense. I would like to thank Charlie Crouteau for the comes apart. thank you card that he sent me for the little I did for We live in New England. It can get pretty hot and mug- his Project Goodwill, and we should remember that gy in the summer; and it gets cold in the winter – or at this is an ongoing project, as our Freedom Pen Project least it used to. When we heat up the air in the house is. We are very fortunate to have such talented people the relative humidity drops to zilch. This of course is in our club that we can call upon to give us enjoyable bad for the turnings. If their diameter is small, not much demonstrations at our meetings. I hope this news letter happens. However if they are large, two things can hap- gets to Graeme as the last two have gone to email pen and neither is all that great. They may distort and never-never land. If anybody has anything that they worse luck, they check. (I wonder why wood turners want brought up then send me an email or speak to call it checking when what it is doing is splitting!!) me at the meeting. Remember this is your club and Of course we all know the reason. But this article will you have a right to voice your opinions. Life should be irst try to put a few numbers on what is going on and enjoyable and have fun turning. then suggest some things that you can do that might help. Of course if you havenʼt had problems or already AL have a preferred cure, you can skip the rest. Letʼs start by talking about cells, drying and shrinkage. (I donʼt mean in the Seinfeld sense.) Think of a Contents log from the trunk. The cells in wood are generally Presidentʼs Message 1 very elongated cylinders. For most cells, the long axis is up and down. However, a minority of the cell point Guest Editorial 1 from the center out. These are in the “medullary rays”. These rays can give rise to some of the more interesting Club Oficers 2 patterns in turned objects. I am not sure if they are the Minutes of Last Meeting 2 cause of the tiger stripes in maple, but I am sure they are the light “cross grain” streaks you often see in oak. Upcoming Events 2 When the cells dry they shrink, of course. But for all practical purposes, they donʼt shrink in the long direc- Multi-axis Spindle Turning 3 tion. The cylinders get skinnier, not shorter. Multi-axis Ornaments 4 Call the direction along the trunk “longitudinal”. Call Show & Tell 6 ctd. on p. 5

PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor Page 2 THE CNEW SKEW VOLUME 20 ISSUE 3 Club Oficers and Contact Info for 2007 President, Al Faul [email protected] VP, Internal, Reid Gilmore [email protected] VP, External, Mary Maguire [email protected] Secretary, Tim Elliott [email protected] Treasurer, Norma Hogan [email protected] Newsletter, Graeme Young [email protected] Video Librarian, Al Faul [email protected] Book Librarian, Ray Boutotte [email protected] Webmaster, Dave Eaton [email protected] Photography, Henry Fairlie [email protected]

Minutes of March Meeting another open shop prior to our April meeting. Look for details in the newsletter or website. Tim Elliott Russ Ellis showed some tools from his collection - these Visitors: Zoltan Bardossy, Russ Ellis few items are distinctive in that the original owners Reid Gilmore reported that our April program will be have left behind their “ingerprints” on the handles. presented by Norm Mancuso. If you would like to do Program: Reid Gilmore on multi-axis spindle turning a meeting demo, please contact Reid; the schedule is currently empty from June onwards. Sometime this Upcoming Events Fall, he may organize a panel discussion on issues of Demo for CNEW April 5th meeting will be turning a design. Green wood bowl, by Norm Mancuso. Norma Hogan gave a treasurerʼs report for the past month The Yankee Woodturning Symposium to be Starting balance: $1226 held June 1-3 at Wesleyan College in Middletown, CT, Ending balance: $1372 is coming up fast and plans are being inalized. As pre- Ray Boutotte is planning to clean up the book library viously announced we have lined up ten featured dem- inventory and get it posted on our website. onstrators with national and international reputations Gene Spadi has a number of pens for the Freedom Pen as well as some very good local talent. The featured project, but he will wait a month or two before sending demonstrators include Jimmy Clewes from England, them in - if you would like to contribute, please see Graeme Priddle from New Zealand, Jean-Francois Gene. Escoulen from France, and from the U.S., Johannes Charlie Croteau gave an update on Project Goodwill. Michelsen, Mark St. Leger, Michael Hosaluk, Mark Sales were strong at Springield, and our club total now Sirri, Angelo Iafrate, Beth Ireland, and Bob Rosand. stands at around 112 chairs donated. Charlie collected Register early as the fee increases from $135 to $150 several items from show & tell for future sale, and on May 1st and will be $165 at the door. For details distributed a large pile of wood to members wishing to see our website www.yankeewoodturningsymposium. make future contributions. org; email [email protected] or call 401-829- Frank White had promotional lyers for the Yankee 8293. Hope to see many of you there! Woodturning Symposium to be held this June. Details Coming of Age: Emerging and Established Wood are irming up. The CNEW website provides a link Artists, at the Woodturning Center in Philadelphia with more details. until May 19th. Exhibition marking the Centerʼs 21st Visitors and hosts of the Open Shop visits last month year promoting and serving the wood art community. all had a good time. Some details were printed in the More details at www.woodturningcenter.org or 215- last newsletter. 923-8000. Joe Harbey will work with the center to schedule

PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor Page 3 THE CNEW SKEW VOLUME 20 ISSUE 3 Multi-Axis Spindle Turning Reid Gilmore Applications: ornaments, bottle stoppers, boxes, pepper mills, etc. (woodgrain aligned with lathe axis.) 7 7 Equipment: ⁄8˝ diameter Revolving Stebcenter and ⁄8˝ diameter Stebcenter drive center. Stebcenters are available from several different wordturning vendors. Check around for best price. Laying out a 3-axis turning 1. Measure the stock (example is 2˝ x 2˝). Carefully locate the center (black dot) by drawing diagonals from the corners. 3. Using the 3-axis turning chart (see below) look up the stock size to ind the drive circle radius (for 2˝ stock this is 9/16˝). 4. Draw the drive circle (red line) using a compass. 5. Mark the drive axis (red dots) with an awl. Drive axis #1 is the intersection of the diagonal and the drive circle. Place the compass on the opposite diagonal (square red dot) and mark drive axis #2 and #3. (the radius is 1/6th of the circumference, near enough). 6. Using the chart look up the solid circle radius (13⁄16 for 2˝ stock), and draw the blue circle using the compass. Solid circle radius = drive circle radius + 4˝. 7. Repeat the layout on the opposite. Use the same measurements if you donʼt want tapered sides. 8. Number the 3 drive axes. For straight sides, #1 is on the diagonal on both ends. The numbers rotate clockwise on one end and counter- clockwise on the other. For swirled sides, axis #1 on the other end is rotated by 120˚. 9. The bottom diagram shows the inal shape in green. When the piece is turned using axis #1 (green dot), the green dashed line shows the turned circle radius, which cuts the stock at the solid green line.

Three axis Chart Four axis chart Stock (in.) Drive radius Solid radius Stock (in.) Drive radius Solid radius Diam. (in.) (in.) (in.) diameter (in.) 1 3⁄16 7⁄16 1 4 2 1 3⁄16 4 2 1 4 5⁄16 9⁄16 1 3⁄8 5⁄16 9⁄16 1 3⁄8 3⁄8 5⁄8 1 2 3⁄8 5⁄8 1 2 7⁄16 11⁄16 1 11⁄16 7⁄16 11⁄16 1 11⁄16 2 4 27 27 9 13 1 /32 2 4 1 /32 ⁄16 ⁄16 9 13 5 7 2 ⁄16 ⁄16 2 ⁄8 ⁄8 5 7 2 ¹⁄8 ⁄8 ⁄8 2 5⁄16 11⁄16 15⁄16 2 2 4 1 2 5⁄8 13⁄16 1 1⁄16 13 7 2 ⁄16 ⁄8 1 ¹⁄8 3 15⁄16 1 3⁄16 3 4 1 1⁄16 1 5⁄16 3 2 1 ¹⁄8 1 3⁄8 3 4 1 4 1 2

PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor Page 4 THE CNEW SKEW VOLUME 20 ISSUE 3 Multi-Axis Ornaments end of the blank. This will be used to center the piece Reid Gilmore on a waste block when the ornament is hollowed. Multi-axis ornaments are variations on the standard The stock is now mounted so that the drive center and “globe and icicle” Christmas ornament that was revolving center are both at drive center #1. A lathe pioneered by Bob Rosand. Instead of a round or oval- speed of ~1000rpm is good for these “off center” turn- shaped globe that is turned using a single axis, the ings and the roughing gouge is the tool of choice. Since multi-axis ornaments are turned with three or four axes relatively little wood needs to be removed, stop the (not something you chop wood with, the plural of axis). lathe frequently if you canʼt see the solid circle rabbet. The multi-axis turning method used on these ornaments After the irst side is completed, repeat the process using was demonstrated by Cindy Drozda at Totally Turning centers #2 and #3. You probably wonʼt get a perfectly in her 3-sided box demonstration. Step-by-step descrip- smooth surface using a roughing gouge, but with a soft tions for laying out three-sided multi-axis turnings are touch, sanding will be minimal. The easiest way to sand included as part of this article. I have made three sided the sides of these ornaments is to start with a belt sander and four sided multi-axis ornaments. As you increase (100 grit) before moving on to hand sanding. the number of sides, the shape of the turned object The multi-axis ornament is now ready for end shap- starts to approximate a circle. For that reason, I have ing and hollowing. With a waste block mounted on a not tried a six-sided turning. face plate, turn a lat surface that is roughly 5⁄8˝ to 4˝ in diameter. Using a 3⁄8˝ drill, drill a 4˝ deep hole in The drive centers for a 3-sided multi-axis turning can 3 be viewed as being at the 4, 8 and 12 oʼclock positions the waste block. Use thick CA glue and a 2˝ long ⁄8˝ on the drive circle. Please note that the three drive cen- diameter dowel to make a centering post for your orna- ters (#1, #2 and #3) rotate clockwise on one end of the ment. Glue the ornament onto the centering post and stock, and counter-clockwise on the other end. If the lat end of your waste block. Once the glue has set, use stock is mounted on the lathe so that the Stebcenter a spindle gouge to shape the ends of the ornament, and drive and the revolving tailcenter are both at the 12 remove the marks made by the Stebcenters. oʼclock position, the turned object will have straight To speed up the hollowing process, I use a 4˝ Forstner sides that are parallel to the lathe bed. If the drive center bit to make the entry hole and remove a lot of the or- is in the 12 oʼclock position and the revolving tailcen- nament center. Small hollowing tools (4˝ straight and ter is at 4 oʼclock, the turned surface will “swirl” 120° 4˝ curved scrapers) are used to complete the hollow- around the stock. Three and four sided “swirls” are an ing process. If you donʼt want to have “windows” in interesting variation on the standard round globe orna- the ornament, stop the lathe frequently and check the ments. Because the multi-axis ornaments are not round, wall thickness. The windows are caused by deliberate the hollowing step can open “windows” in the sides “overhollowing”. The sides of the windows will have of these 3 and 4 sided objects. I havenʼt tried making wood splinters, so the shape of the window needs to windows in the 3-sided or 4-sided swirls yet, because be reined with an Exacto knife and sandpaper. If the the swirls I have made arenʼt quite symmetrical, so the multi-axis steps were done carefully (stopping at the windows would vary in size. solid circle radius) and you use the centering post meth- As stock for these ornaments I use 2˝x2˝ turning stock od described above, the windows should be the same cut to 1.5˝ - 1.75˝ in length. The grain of the wood needs size on each of the three faces. The target weight for the to be parallel to the lathe bed. After inding the centers inal ornament, including the icicle, is 1 ounce, so I aim on each end, lay out the drive circles and solid circles for a ¹⁄8˝ thick wall on these ornaments. (see instructions). Mount the stock between centers After sanding the ornament you can apply inish while and use a roughing gouge to remove the corners of the it is still on the waste block. To remove the ornament 3 stock. Use a skew chisel to cut a ¹⁄8˝ wide rabbet down from the waste block, start by using a ⁄8˝ drill mounted to the diameter of the solid circle radius on each end of to your tailstock to drill out the dowel centering post. the stock. Mount the stock in a chuck and use a 3⁄8˝ drill The ornament can then be removed from the waste mounted in the tailstock to drill a 4˝ deep hole in one block using a parting tool.

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Editorial, ctd. with a lot of things, like how fast the tree grew, etc. etc. the direction from the center out, i.e. across the grain, More importantly wood moisture in a dry winter home “radial”; and the direction around the trunk, i.e. within may not be 12% and in a humid summer home it is not one of the grains around the tree, “circumferential”. 100%. But they are good guides to the relative impor- Some typical numbers for shrinkage are 0.1% in the tance of shrinkage. longitudinal direction, 4% in the radial direction, and Letʼs irst look at the usual non-segmented, non-end- 8% in the circumferential. Think of a board. The length grain turning. In one horizontal direction it doesnʼt of the board is longitudinal, or at least mostly so. If the want to shrink at all, and in the other it wants to shrink board has an interesting pattern, the width is circumfer- somewhere between 3.5% and 7.0%. Ah ha, that is why ential, and the thickness is radial. If the board shows a they go oval! In the vertical direction, they want to lot of grain, then the width is radial and the thickness shrink between 2.5% and 4.5%. circumferential. Now of course what happens depends not only on how Now a little bit about moisture in wood. There are two much it wants to shrink, but how strong the wood is. types of water in wood. The free water is in the capil- Strong woods, with small shrinkage, made into small laries and the bound water is inside the cells. The free turnings do little. Strong woods with high shrink- water is what sprays all over you when you turn re- age go oval. And weak woods, with some shrinkage, ally green wood. Although there is a heck of a lot of check. “Strength” does not mean how hard it is to bend it, this stuff is not the bad actor: trees donʼt shrink in the wood, i.e. stiffness. That goes into the shrinkage the winter, when the amount of free water is greatly value. It means how much bending it will take before it reduced. The bad actor is the bound water, which is in breaks. Somewhat contradictorily, strong woods bend the cells. There are no cells pointing circumferentially, and weak woods donʼt and therefore snap. i.e. around the tree. When the cells lose their water they shrink and therefore the 8%. The medullary rays have How do you minimize the problems? There are a couple cells pointing radially and they reinforce the wood and of things you can do. The most obvious is to reduce the reduce shrinkage in that direction, hence the 4%. height of the turning so that you are as far away from the pith as you can be. This minimizes the difference One inal note: The moisture (bound water) content of between radial and circumferential. Remember this dry wood of course depends on the relative humidity. It difference is the same size and the difference between also depends on temperature, but only slightly, and the longitudinal and radial. Also the wood is far and away type of wood. At 20% relative humidity the moisture much stronger in the longitudinal direction, so it can content is in the single igures, say 5%. At 90% rela- take the “oval” shrinkage. tive humidity it is about 25%. The “standard” content for dry wood is 12%, and shrinkage is measured either Remember thin walls can bend more easily than thick between 100% relative humidity and 12%, or between ones. So again somewhat contradictorily, thin bowls are 100% and 0%. Listed below are some shrinkage values strong, i.e. donʼt check, while thick bowls do. for different woods. The values are for drying from The other common thing that is done is to dry very 100% to 12% moisture. slowly. This lets the cells of the wood “creep” and dis- tributes the stress of shrinkage; but it does not eliminate Type Radial (%) Circum (%) C/R ratio it. Finally there are a number of tricks that are reported Cherry 3.5 6.5 1.9 to work, but how they work is usually not explained. Beech 3.0 6.0 2.0 The irst is to boil the boil the wood. We all have heard Walnut 2.5 3.5 1.4 of steam bending, well boiling does the same thing. I think what it does is to give the dry cells some ability to Oak 3.0 5.5 1.9 slide past each other and relieve the stress of shrinkage. Maple 2.5 5.0 2.0 The other thing that is in the literature is to soak the Ash 4.5 7.0 1.6 wood in dish detergent before you dry it. I guess it does the same thing, i.e. lubricates the cells and allows them OK, these numbers are typical for the tree type and vary to slip past each other. (Creepy, no?)

PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor Page 6 THE CNEW SKEW VOLUME 20 ISSUE 3 Editorial, ctd. OK, inally segmented bowls. There are two no noʼs. Show and Tell The worst is to have the circumferential direction glued Photographs by Henry Fairlie to the longitudinal. This is a “cross grain” joint. Almost as bad is side grain to end grain, i.e. radial to either circumferential or longitudinal. If you make the standard multi layered “ring” designs, you can have more or less longitudinal to longitudinal joints and the larger the number of segments, the more closely aligned the grains will be. This is why many people do it – no expansion except through the (thin) wall. There are three problems of course. What do you do with the bottom? Making eight, twelve or sixteen pieces come together at a single point is really tough. Second, the “brick work” structure strikes some people as not too attractive. And third, you cannot make the bottom out of a single piece of really cool wood. An approach that I use to get around some of these problems is to make all my segments align in the same direction, so I have radial to radial, or longitudinal to longitudinal or circum. to circum. joints. In a simple case I make the bottom piece out of a single (square) piece of wood. I cut strips (cross grain and with grain) and glue up the top so it looks like a tic-tac-toe board. Of course the center square is large. A large number of designs are possible and some quite neat patterns can be made. Of course I still have the problem that the different woods shrink a little differently. But you canʼt have everything. Some guiding rules for segmented turnings: 1) Keep your diameters small 2) Use really good glues (super glue is terrible) 3) Choose your woods carefully for small shrinkage and the ability to bend 4) Make the walls thin 5) Donʼt do the no noʼs and most importantly 6) Only sell your bowls to people who promise to keep the humidity up in their houses in the winter! There are many good books on wood drying and shrinkage. One quick one is the introductory chapter of of “Turning Green Wood” by Michael OʼDonnell. From the top: Funeral urn by Dave Hopkins for his not-yet-deceased brother. Quilted maple box by Mike Stone. One of Tim Elliottʼs very tall thin miniature vases. Hickory saucer, burned and dyed by Graeme Young.

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Lots of segmented work this month. Clockwise from top left: Joe Harbey made the cutting board, then made the bowl from the cutoffs. Zebrawood and wenge bowl by Norm Mancuso. A plywood box and maple & bloodwood bowl by Phil Bowman. Reid Gilmore made the ambrosia maple form. Frank White did “Tee Time” for a competition but missed the deadline. A walnut bowl by Mike Stone. Lots of boxes with segmented bits by Phil Bowman. A maple and walnut container by John McAtee.

A 25 Sagamore Road Worcester, MA 01605

Phone: 508-753-8183 C Fax: 508-797-5626 E R N E T T Email: [email protected] R P AL HA NE C W ENGLAND

Central New England Woodturners A Chapter of the American Association of Woodturners

On the web: www.cnew.org

To join or renew your membership, print this form and either bring it to the next meeting with cash or check for $20 made payable to CNEW, or mail the form along with a check to:

Treasurer Central New England Woodturners c/o Worcester Center For Crafts 25 Sagamore Road Worcester, MA 01650

Volume 20 Issue 2 February 2007 Editorial You can tell with experience when this tool is getting dull, as you will need to add more and more pressure What is a Negative Rake Scraper? to keep the tool cutting. At this stage if you do not re- The basic design of a Negative Rake Scraper (NRS) sharpen you will be tearing the grain and it will take is a scraper with an additional bevel on top of the tool several re-cuts and re-sharpenings to repair the damage. where itʼs normally lat. The blade is ground on the So sharpen early, sharpen often. top at an angle and then the lower bevel is ground to The History of the NRS produce a burr on the upward edge – it is only the burr that does the work. There is no need for the upper and The most prominent use for a NRS in the past was for lower bevels to be symmetrical so the upper bevel is making musical instruments from hard woods with usually much longer: that way only the lower bevel dense grain, particularly ivory and blackwood. has to be reground to create a new burr. In fact, any Ivory has a grain like a dense exotic and will grab tool ground this way can be used as a NRS – a freshly on any type of scraper that does not have a negative ground skew held lat works just as well, as long as you angle. However, because of its extreme density and use it with the burr facing up! very high speciic gravity (some 50% greater than any The great advantage of the NRS over a standard scraper wood known to man - SG 1.84) it can be cut without is that it is almost impossible to get a catch, even on hard the burr on a scraper with a negative angle. Ivory was end grain. The question is why the change in geometry used for making Billiard and Snooker balls. These is so effective in eliminating catches. Andrew Hilton were hand turned and to get extreme accuracy scraping (www.hiltonhandcraft.com/woodturningarticles.asp) was essential and a negative angle on the scraper was thinks itʼs because you can actually ride on the lower required to avoid the ivory grabbing at the tool. bevel. My own opinion is itʼs mostly because the burr Blackwood is used for the majority of high quality extends out in front of the edge instead of curling back Bagpipes and one essential part of the bagpipe is the over it as in a regular scraper. That, and possibly the fact that a NRS is much thinner at the cutting edge than a regular scraper, means that when a catch does start Contents there is very little metal being “bent out of shape”. So when the wood gives way, there is much less energy Editorial 1 stored in the deformed metal. Club Oficers 2 The NRS is an excellent way to reine shape and take out small tool marks – it is very easy to use and a great way Next Monthʼs Program 2 to get accurate shapes or thickness. It is not aggressive Open Shop - Ken Dubay 3 even on very dense end grain, unlike a regular scraper with a burr. However, it is not a bulk removal technique Making a Tool Holder 4 as the cutting life is very short. It is essential that there is a burr present on the cutting edge – once the burr has Open Shop - Mike Peters 5 been worn off, the scraper will not work well and will Show & Tell 6 usually start tearing the grain.

PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor Page 2 THE CNEW SKEW VOLUME 20 ISSUE 2 Club Oficers and Contact Info for 2007 President, Al Faul [email protected] VP, Internal, Reid Gilmore [email protected] VP, External, Mary Maguire [email protected] Secretary, Tim Elliott [email protected] Treasurer, Norma Hogan [email protected] Newsletter, Graeme Young [email protected] Video Librarian, Al Faul [email protected] Book Librarian, Ray Boutotte [email protected] Webmaster, Dave Eaton [email protected] Photography, Henry Fairlie [email protected]

chanter. This is the section of the instrument that is Subject: Planting season actually played to produce the notes. It is approximately A true(?) story told by L.A.P.D. 15˝ long and tapered along itʼs length – it has a wall thickness of less than ¹⁄8˝ (3mm) along itʼs full length. An old Mexican man lived alone in East Los Angeles. This piece of the instrument is by far the hardest part He wanted to spade his garden, but it was very hard to make and requires scraping to achieve the required work. His only son, Jose, who used to help him, was accuracy in wall thickness. in prison. The old man wrote a letter to his son and described his predicament. It is almost impossible to scrape Blackwood with a regular scraper blade either with or without the burr. Dear Jose: Using a regular blade will cause the wood to grab at the I am feeling pretty bad because it looks like I wonʼt be tool and shatter the chanter piece. Instead a negative able to plant my garden this year. Iʼm just too old to be angle is required for the blade to prevent any grabbing. digging up a garden. If you were here, all my troubles However, due to the high density of Blackwood, it is would be over. I know you would dig the garden for not always essential to have a burr and remember that me. the chanter is all side grain turning, so the negative Tu Padre angle without a burr will peel off the wood ibers. The tool must however be kept very sharp. If it is allowed A few days later, he received a letter from his son: to dull then the turner will start pushing and cause the Dear Papa: thin wall of the chanter to chatter, however, it would not Por Dios, Papa, donʼt dig up the garden. Thatʼs where I grab but instead just leave a poor quality inish. buried all my drugs and money. Tu hijo, Jose

At 6 a.m. the next morning, the L.A. Sheriffs showed up and dug up the entire area without inding any drugs or money. They apologized to the old man and left. That same day, the old man received another letter from his son. Dear Papa: Go ahead and plant your garden now, papa. Itʼs the best I could do under the circumstances. Love, Jose XOXO

PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor Page 3 THE CNEW SKEW VOLUME 20 ISSUE 2 Shop Visit: Ken Dubay Dave Eaton On Feb. 1st, 2007, I and several members of CNEW and CCW had the pleasure of joining Ken Dubay for a full day shop visit at his home in Columbia, Connecticut. There were about a dozen of us all sharing ideas and having a good time. To start the day, Ken showed how to core a nested set of bowls, use the vacuum chucking method of turning the foot side of a bowl and a few more tricks. After his demoʼs we all took turns standing at one of Kenʼs two Oneway 2436 lathes. Everyone got

6pm. It may be a bit of a drive from your house to Kenʼs but one thing I can guarantee is that youʼll be quite pleased you made the effort should you get there one day. Ken is, aside from being a gracious host, quite a gregarious and entertaining fellow with loads of turning skill and talent he is quite willing to share. He teaches classes at all levels and many techniques, beginner to expert. Ken invited us back anytime to do it all again. I think that it would be great if we could make a pilgrimage every month or two as a group. In the meantime if you wish to visit him just make a phone call and set up a date. Thanks Ken for such a fun illed day. I canʼt wait until next yearʼs shop visit, but Iʼm sure Iʼll see you well before that – Dave Eaton

a chance to turn something with wood supplied by our gracious host. He even had a selection of woods and burls for a wood swap and Dave Eaton brought a trailer load of freshly cut “Big” Cherry with a few pieces of Mulberry, Black Locust and Elm mixed in. Proceeds from the swap went to the CNEW club treasury. At lunchtime, as is customary at Kenʼs, his sweet wife Mary set a wonderful table serving up a hot chicken soup, crackers, rolls and an excellent desert. We devoured that all up and headed back to the well heated shop for more chipping away. That was the day in a nutshell. Quite a good day! Fun, learning and laughter from 9am until around

PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor Page 4 THE CNEW SKEW VOLUME 20 ISSUE 2 chine easily. This material is readily available at home Make a tool holder centers like Home Depot or Lowes, Ace Hardware Dave Eaton etc, or can be purchased from MSC Industrial Supply, Many useful woodturning tools are only available in Grainger, Enco Tools and more. the form of a “bit” or “tip” rather than a fully handled The diameter of the rod can be critical. It must be large tool. A couple that come to mind are the Wolok or Mar- enough to allow a hole in the end big enough to ac- tel Hook Tools and standard Two Flute End Ball Mills commodate the bit you will insert and rigid enough to which are used for end grain hollowing of open forms withstand bending or vibration when working at full like boxes and vases. Additionally for closed form hol- depth. For hollowing to a depth of less than 18 inches, lowing square carbide tool tips can be used such as a 5⁄8˝ diameter is recommended. For deeper hollowing David Ellsworth shows. One reason these are sold in move up to 1+ inch diameter. If I recall correctly, Mitch bit form is they are made of extremely hard steel which Wolok, who developed a hook tool, said he can hollow prohibits them from being long in length. perhaps 3 feet deep with a rod larger than 1 inch (and 6 Since these tool tips are usually not supplied with the ft long!) but for our discussion letʼs stick with 5⁄8˝ diam- supporting “holder” needed to use them for turning, eter rod which is probably all weʼll ever need. one must either purchase a suitable holder for around Most steel rod at local hardware stores will come in a $25 or craft one themselves. 3 foot length. This is a bit long for our needs so cut it The latter is the subject of this article. You need only ru- with a hacksaw to a shorter length. My choice is to cut dimentary metal working skills and equipment to take it right in the middle yielding 2 each 18˝ lengths for 2 a round steel rod and adapt it for such use. The cost of holders. You could choose 12˝ lengths but after burying making such a tool is considerably lower than a pur- 3 inches into a wood handle your maximum hollowing chased product and is nearly identical when complete. depth may not be suficient. First, letʼs start by Next comes the fun stuff. Place understanding the the rod vertically into a vise or problem. The tool bit clamp, mark the center with a is typically a piece of marker or better yet scribe a metal with a special couple intersecting lines with grind on it which ter- a nail, awl or X-acto knife. minates in a short one Use a center punch and punch or two inch straight the center for ease of starting shaft for mounting such as the Wolok Hook Tool shown the drilling. here. If the bit were not held irmly by the rod as shown Since there are rotational forces that will be working it would be of little use. Once we have a steel rod hold- on the bit when in use, it is also a good idea to add a ing the small bit we are then able to use the tool just as set screw or two to the side of the rod to prevent the it is or, as is often done, with the other end of the rod bit from twisting. Some turners use superglue for this inserted into a wooden tool handle such as would be which seems to work ine, although it makes bit re- typical of any other woodturning tool. placement more dificult. Even though the rod is simply a length of steel with a An easy way to mark the side of the rod for the set hole drilled into the end it can be a little tricky to fab- screws is to simply run a ricate for the ordinary woodworker who lacks access ile across the side with one to a metal working shop. Letʼs see how we can easily pass while keeping the ile machine one of these rods using tools most woodwork- held in a consistently “lat” ers have access to. angle. This will mark the First of course, you need to obtain a suitable length of steel with a small shiny lat useful diameter steel rod. Choose either cold rolled, which can then be used as a mild, or galvanized steel rod as it is soft enough to ma- reference. Making sure the

PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor Page 5 THE CNEW SKEW VOLUME 20 ISSUE 2 reference line is at the top, scribe marks for your screw Thereʼs a useful drill size conversion chart at hole locations. The marks shown are at 4˝ and 7⁄8˝ from http://www.csgnetwork.com/drillsizeconvert.html. A the rod end, but the locations are not critical as long #29 is actually 0.1360˝, a tad under 9⁄64˝. as you assure that the screws will in fact make contact Once drilled, tap the with the bit when inserted. Punch these locations for holes with a hand tap drilling as well. using oil again, and Place the rod into a drill press, up through the center youʼre almost done. In hole in the table and clamp it in place. If your rod fact the only tasks left wonʼt it or drill press table are cleaning up and as- has no hole then you might sembly. alternatively tilt the table 90 To ensure that the rod degrees and clamp accord- will it into a hole ingly. I use a wood screw drilled into wood for a handle if desired, grind the clamp with a “hole” in the back end of the rod slightly easing the sharp edge and jaws to grip the rod. Drill a removing any burrs. Additionally, itʼs usually a good pilot hole in the rod with a idea to round the working end of the rod a bit to prevent spotting drill or other, pref- a sharp edge from causing injury or scratching your erably small and short drill work. Itʼs as easy as rotating the end of the rod against that will not wander such as the grinding wheel, raising and lowering the far end un- a ¹⁄8˝ bit. A spotting drill is til satisied. If a nice shine is desired you may buff the made speciically for this, steel or use sandpaper or Emory cloth to bring out the to be strong and not wander inish desired. Lastly, insert the tool bit and tighten the from the center punched dimple. Be sure to apply suf- rear set screw ensuring it grabs the bit. Then install any icient cooling oil during drilling or smoke is all you other set screws. You may need to ile the heads of the will get. The 3-in-1 oil brand is suitable, even motor oil set screws slightly to bring them down to the surface of if youʼre desperate. the rod, but be sure to leave enough hex socket to re- Once a pilot is drilled switch to the larger diameter drill move them later. If they are too long, remove them and bit which will accommodate your tool bit shaft and re- grind down the other end. Congratulations — Youʼre a drill the same hole to desired depth. For the hook tool, machinist! since the bit shaft is 4˝ dia. I use a 5⁄16˝ drill bit which allows for shaft imperfections but is small enough for good support. The hole depth is about 1 inch. Donʼt worry if the hole isnʼt straight or exactly centered either. Do your best, but when youʼre using the tool to cut the wood “will never know”. This process can be done with a hand drill if due care is taken. The results will perhaps not be as precise but the end result will work ine. Remove the rod and You can use this rod to hold many styles of bits like re-clamp it horizon- these below: tally for drilling the set screw holes. Again use • Hook Tools for open form end grain hollowing a spot drill to prepare • Ball End Mills for open form end grain hollowing and then re-drill to a • High Strength Cobalt steel tool bits for closed form size appropriate for hollowing (i.e. Ellsworth) the set screw. A #29 drill bit is needed for 8-32 x 3⁄16˝ set screws.

PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor Page 6 THE CNEW SKEW VOLUME 20 ISSUE 2 Sources: Open Shop at Mike Peters M2 Hardened Wolok Hook tool bits ~$30. Mitch Wolok Mary Maguire is in the AAW directory under Florida. Here are the photos from the open turning at Mike Andre Martel Hook tool bits: $40 to $90 depending on Peters. I took photos of the table he made for his midi size at martel.public.netc.net//MHT.html lathe so I could copy it for my lathe. Ball End Mills are about $15 from Enco (www.use- Mike gave me some great pointers I enjoyed it very enco.com) or MSC (www.mscdirect.com). The same much. sources carry Hard Tool Steel bits ($3) and ¹⁄8˝ Spotting Drills ($3) These are normal hardware store items: 5⁄8˝ Steel Rod - 36˝ lengths $11 at Lowes 8-32 x 3⁄16˝ Set Screws - 0.20c 8-32 Tap - $3 #29 High Speed Twist Drill bit - $3 5⁄16˝ High Speed Twist Drill bit - $5 3-in-1 oil or cutting & tapping luids - $3 Make your own hook tool by Alan Lacer at www.alanlacer.com/Articles.html Info on Hook Tool by Mitch Wolok, on CNEW website

Other Open Shops Nobody showed up at Hank Cahillʼs. Phil Bowman hosted Steve Reznek and Will Hunt, who demonstrated the pointed inlays described in last Novemberʼs newsletter. Reid Gilmoreʼs only guest was Jon Berke. They worked on a small hollow form in ambrosia maple, which may be inished by the March meeting. Joe Harbey had a successful evening but I donʼt have a write-up or photographs.

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A 25 Sagamore Road Worcester, MA 01605

Phone: 508-753-8183 C Fax: 508-797-5626 E R N E T T Email: [email protected] R P AL HA NE C W ENGLAND

Central New England Woodturners A Chapter of the American Association of Woodturners

On the web: www.cnew.org

To join or renew your membership, print this form and either bring it to the next meeting with cash or check for $20 made payable to CNEW, or mail the form along with a check to:

Treasurer Central New England Woodturners c/o Worcester Center For Crafts 25 Sagamore Road Worcester, MA 01650

Volume 20 Issue 1 January 2007 Editorial Today your mission (Free Wheelchair Mission) made that dream come true. For a complete change this month, hereʼs a story from “When both families sent us out, we felt alone in this the Free Wheelchair Mission about someone they world. The wheelchair helps me to perform duties as helped in the Indian state of Kerala. Kerala is along the a mother. Your mission helps the destitute like us. Tell coast at the southwestern tip of India. the world that what we physically challenged need “Today is national polio immunization day. I will is not sympathy. We need support. Thank you Free take my child to the nearest polio vaccine booth. Wheelchair Mission for that support! May God bless The ignorance or negligence of my parents made you all.” me a polio victim. That shall not happen to my child. Containers of wheelchairs have recently gone to Kyr- Thanks to Free Wheelchair Mission for giving me this gyzstan, Costa Rica, Kenya, India, China, Ethiopia, wheelchair.” Pakistan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Peru, Congo and Saritha (age 23) became a polio victim at the age of El Salvador. What we do can make a real difference in 3. Her life was miserable due to her disability. Added peopleʼs lives. Hereʼs Charlie at the Woodworks Show. to that, her parents took no interest in her life. Saritha fell in love with her neighbor and of her own will they got married. Only arranged marriages are welcomed in Kerala society. So her plans, a marriage based on love, were totally unacceptable to both parents. Saritha and her husband were sent out of the family. Saritha continued, “When my son Anil was born, I felt so sad. I could not take him him around in my hand. Taking children in the arms is the desire of any mother. My disability prevented me from that. It was my long dream. Now, the impossible is possible. Contents Editorial 1 Club Oficers 2 Next Monthʼs Program 2 Minutes of Last Meeting 3 Simpliied Tool Making 4 Woodworks Show 5 Show & Tell 6

PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor Page 2 THE CNEW SKEW VOLUME 20 ISSUE 1 Club Oficers and Contact Info for 2007 President, Al Faul 978-534-3683 [email protected] VP, Internal, Reid Gilmore 508-856-5894 [email protected] VP, External, Mary Maguire 603-899-5094 [email protected] Secretary, Tim Elliott 603-778-3834 [email protected] Treasurer, Norma Hogan 508-248-5525 [email protected] Newsletter, Graeme Young 508-485-8271 [email protected] Video Librarian, Al Faul 978-534-3683 [email protected] Book Librarian, Ray Boutotte 978-368-0004 [email protected] Webmaster, Dave Eaton 508-653-6364 [email protected] Photography, Henry Fairlie [email protected]

More Photos from the Woodworks Show February Open Shops Several members will be opening their shops to the rest of us in February. Open shop night will be on or around Thursday February 1st in place of our regular meeting. The members who have kindly offered to open their shops are Phil Bowman (Newton Highlands, MA) 617-244-5379 Ken Dubay (Columbia, CT) 860-228-2695 Reid Gilmore (Upton, MA) 508-234-3188 Joe Harbey (Westield, MA) 413-562-6705 Mike Peters (Sutton, MA) 508-865-0392 Joe Harbey, Al Faul and Norm Mancuso manning the Hank Cahill (Abington, MA) 781-878-0234 CNEW booth Everyone has limited space and can only accommodate a limited number of visitors so if you want to visit, call the host as early as possible. The host will provide directions and other details, such as the date and time of the open shop, when you call. Maps are also available on the CNEW website. Attendees at the various locations are asked to take (dig- ital) photos at the shop. Please forward photo iles to the Editor (preferred e-mail address [email protected]). It would be most helpful if someone could take notes and forward these to me also.

Dave Eaton demonstrating Mulberry bowl by Martin Ring

PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor Page 3 THE CNEW SKEW VOLUME 20 ISSUE 1 Minutes of April Meeting and registration will open in February or March. Volun- teers will be needed, and the organizers are hoping to Tim Elliott draw from the rosters of contributing local chapters (us Ex-president Dave Eaton introduced new president Al included). Please notify Al Faul if you would like your Faul. We had one guest: Josh, guest of Joe Harbey. Al name excluded from the list of possible volunteers. introduced other new oficers: CNEWʼs application asking the AAW for educational funds to help support this symposium has been com- Mary Maguire - External VP pleted and will be sent to AAW bundled with similar Reid Gilmore - Internal VP applications from six other chapters. Norma Hogan - Treasurer Graeme Young - Newsletter February will be an Open Shop meeting - your opportu- Tim Elliott - Secretary nity to visit the home of some other CNEW member for Henry Fairlie - Photographer shop talk and inspiration. Six volunteers have agreed to Dave Eaton - Webmaster open their shops for the night, but space will be limited Chris Bonczek - Video librarian and you are expected to contact the shop host prior to Ray Boutotte - Book librarian the meeting night to conirm your attendance and get Gene Spadi - Woodswap, Freedom Pen project directions. Our volunteer hosts are: Charlie Croteau - Project Goodwill Hank Cahill Abington MA Ex-treasurer Mickey Goodman gave a summary of our Ken Dubay Columbia CT inances: In December the club took in dues for two Joe Harbey Westield, MA members and was reimbursed for the cost of the booth Mike Peters Sutton, MA at the Thanksgiving Craft Fair. Reid Gilmore Upton, MA Phil Bowman Newton Highlands, MA start: $667 end: $1404 We intended to purchase a Talon chuck for the Worces- ter Center for Crafts at the end of 2006 in apprecia- Summary of all of 2006: tion for our meeting space. Bobbi Tornheim may have start: $1200 bought this, but she was not present at this meeting. income: $5783 Phil Bowman will follow up and buy the chuck if she spent: $5568 did not already do it. end: $1404 Richard Vose has been contacted by the organizers Charlie Croteau reported on Project Goodwill. We have of the woodcarverʼs show next October. Since only raised another $540, due in large part to a number of 2 CNEW members attended in 2006, he asked for a matted photographs donated by Conrad Berthold. This show of hands to get a sense of likely level of support month, there will be an auction in conjunction with the in 2007. Several members showed an interest and we wood show at the Big E fairgrounds. Several members voted to participate again. brought items in for this event. Reid Gilmore collected names of members planning to Charlie also noted that his wood donor has offered to demonstrate at the Big E. provide materials suitable for larger projects if any members would be interested in making, say, furniture Dave Eaton had hook tools available for purchase.... to donate to this cause. also, he is working on thin-kerf parting tools and sharpening jigs. See him at a meeting if interested. Joe Harbey again organized an open turning session before our January meeting. There will not be an open Will Hunt donated two books to the CNEW library. turning session before the February meeting, as we will have our annual “open shop” visits - not at the Worces- ter Center for Crafts. Norm Mancuso and Frank White gave an update on the regional symposium begin organized for Connecticut in June. The website is up (see link on CNEW website)

PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor Page 4 THE CNEW SKEW VOLUME 20 ISSUE 1 Simpliied Tool Making Set up a bucket with the correct quenching material. You may ask what is the difference. Some steels call Jim Kephart explicitly for either oil or water hardening. Some oil The irst thing I must do, like Norm Abrams in New hardening steels may develop ine cracks in sections Yankee Workshop series on PBS, is to warn you about shop safety. An active wood turning shop has more than thinner than the main piece of metal (like knife edges) normal amounts of very combustible materials. Wood if quenched too quickly, so oil may be preferred. Dur- dust and shavings are not a ire marshalʼs dream ening oil quenching, the oil may catch ire on the surface, vironment for using open lame torches. I recommend which is easily blown out. In any case, hot metal in you either clean your shop, or take your tool making cool oil will smoke profusely and smell up the house outside or to a more ire safe area. This does not neces- for hours. So now, I usually use water or quench out- sarily mean that your garage with its gasoline cans and lawn mowers is a safer area. Use some common sense side. Unless you are making edge tools with the edges and examine the area before proceeding. It is also a forged verses ground, water should work ine for most good idea to keep a bucket of water available and/or a materials. large ire extinguisher. Oh, and like Norm says, remem- Using the MAPP gas or propane torch, heat the tool ber the safety glasses. Other items like leather gloves evenly until it glows red. At this point any bending etc. may be advisable if you plan on doing a lot of this should be done with pliers and bench vise. If the tool sort of thing. One additional rule from an old chemistry must be drilled or otherwise rough machined the steel teacher, “Hot things look like cool things.” should be allowed to cool very slowly, this is called an- The principle is relatively simple, you heat a good piece nealing. It will leave the material soft enough to drill or of steel until it becomes non-magnetic (i.e. a magnet ile. If it seemed to get harder from annealing you may will not stick to it), then quench it in the right mate- have found a weird material called air hardening steel. rial. It will harden. The problem is that it is usually too I found some the hard way. hard for practical use. It is too brittle for our use; any After the shape has been formed, the tool must be shock and it will shatter leaving a broken grainy surface hardened. Reheat the tool to red heat then start check- between the two or more pieces. So to make the steel ing to see if it sticks to a magnet. If it has become non handle shock and stresses better, we have to temper or magnetic, quench the tool in the bucket of oil or water remove some of the hardness in hopefully a controlled by swirling the tool continuously until the tool stops manner. sputtering. Once the tool is cool enough for handling, What you need to make a couple tools: it should be tested with a ine ile to determine if it is hard enough. If the steel is a good high carbon steel and pliers was heated/quenched appropriately, the ile should just ire proof backdrop preferable, irebricks (avoid skate over the surface of the newly hardened tool. If the regular bricks, they may explode if damp) ile bites into the tool and removes material, the steel is magnet either not hardenable or was hardened incorrectly. torch propane or better still At this point the tool is too hard to be used as is for most applications and should be tempered MAPP gas torch or softened slightly. The principle safety glasses, ire safe area to calls for a reheat of the tool to about work 300 to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. This quenching bucket with either oil can be done by baking the tool in you or water as appropriate home oven for an hour or more depending on the thickness of the metal, steel: prefer high carbon or high or reheating with a torch. Someone at speed steels the 1993 Symposium suggested us- a ine ile to test hardness ing a “Fry-Daddy” deep fat fryer with grinding wheel vegetable oil. Until I ind one at a tag Set up a ireproof backdrop in a sale, I dip the tool in water, then heat safe area. I used to use a MAPP it until the water boils off, then guess. gas torch to heat metal being held If it is a thick tool, Iʼll wait 10 to 15 in a pair of pliers, but most of the seconds more, if it is a thin ¹⁄8˝ inch or heat just blows by the tool and is so, Iʼll remove it sooner. Quench the wasted. I now use 3 ire bricks set tool as before. up to form an “L”. This helps to Now all that is left is to grind what- hold and relect the heat back to the ever cutting or scraping surfaces are metal being heated (see photo). required to inish the tool and glue it

PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor Page 5 THE CNEW SKEW VOLUME 20 ISSUE 1 into a handle. Handles, well now maybe thatʼs another article. The only way to determine if the above worked Woodworks Show 2007 is to use the tool: if it holds an edge without shattering, Dave Eaton you did good. Found steel is always hard to determine what it is and The 2007 running of the Woodworks Show show was if it will harden. High carbon steels can be identiied a great success! We received inquiries from over a by the spark pattern formed in the air by test grinding. dozen people about joining the club, sold a few things Other steels which are special alloys may work well and took in $1,800 in donations – enough for about 40 but may require methods different from above. If the wheelchairs – with Charlieʼs tireless work at the adja- steel is purchased from a supply house, the material hardening temperatures etc. will be known. Unfortu- cent Project Goodwill display. nately, unless you get someone like Al Bugby with his We had both club lathes running almost all the time and metal working furnaces it is tough to measure or heat to a constant crowd of onlookers as Joe Harbey, Norm exact temperatures. Other books exist on the topic and Mancuso, Dave Eaton, Al Faul, Charlie Croteau and describe how to judge temperature by the color of the Alan Gilbert manned the tools. steel in a darkened room. Anyway the above process will work with a lot of ma- Close by were the Central Connecticut Woodturners terials with fair success if you are willing to experiment and the CT School of Woodworking so many turners and that is just what most hobbies are an excuse for. we knew were out and about. Ken Dubay, Rick Angus Sources of materials: and Al Czellecz were working and many other folks drill rod can be oil or water hardening from CNEW or ART popped in from time to time. allen wrenches, (prefer long arm) may be used as Thanks to everyone who worked hard to make this bent scrapers without hardening or tempering event a success. You each deserve a big round of old high speed steel drills long shanks (if bending is thanks. With many new prospective members resulting not required, may be used as is) from our time at the show weʼll hopefully get some new old screw drivers steel test with ile (useless extra blood into the club in 2007. screwdrivers in Sears sets.) Next year I believe weʼll do this event again thanks to lea market stuff (test with ile) the support of our members like Reid Gilmore, Charlie do not use hardware store steel rod (low carbon steel Croteau, Joe Harbey and Dave Eaton as well as others will not harden well) Iʼm surely missing. We should also thank the Wood- Wholesale tool supply (in Mass.), 800-343-1008 works staff, Judy Franks, and the management without Production Tool Supply 800-362-0142 whom we would not be able to partake in such a won- McMaster Carr derful event. MSC If you missed this year be sure to join in next year. The ENCO CNEW booth is fun and the show overall is great! So many woodworking vendors under one roof. Wow!

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Things with Holes Clockwise from top left: Lilac root vessel by Joe Harbey and ants Hollow form of oak burl with bloodwood collar by Frank White Cherry burl by Dave Hopkins Inside-out ornament, maker unrecorded Another oak burl piece by Frank White Pierced walnut vase by Mickey Goodman Things with Lines Left to right: Baltic birch plywood bowl by Phil Bowman, teak and maple platter by Steve Reznek, perfume sprayer by Rick Gonzales.

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Joshua Fuller, irst bowl (cherry) Graeme Young, large maple bowl

Joe Harbey, very large lumpy bowl Rick Gonzales, large catalpa bowl

Rick Angus, curly maple bowl w/natural edge Dave Hopkins, cherry burl bowl

A 25 Sagamore Road Worcester, MA 01605

Phone: 508-753-8183 C Fax: 508-797-5626 E R N E T T Email: [email protected] R P AL HA NE C W ENGLAND

Central New England Woodturners A Chapter of the American Association of Woodturners

On the web: www.cnew.org

To join or renew your membership, print this form and either bring it to the next meeting with cash or check for $20 made payable to CNEW, or mail the form along with a check to:

Treasurer Central New England Woodturners c/o Worcester Center For Crafts 25 Sagamore Road Worcester, MA 01650

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